pinkeye??

kidzcare · Nov 13, 2015

Many times, if it's due to an irritant, the student will have a difficult time keeping their eye open. Generally, if the issue is allergies, both eyes will be red.

If the eye is red, next thing to look for is drainage. Thick, yellow, gross drainage. If I don't see any, I will ask the student what it looked like when they woke up. Sometimes they'll tell me that their eye was crusted shut when they woke up- and then they go home with instructions not to return until they'v been seen by a dr and if diagnosed with pinkeye then they need to be on ABT drops for 24 hours before returning. They might say there was no drainage. So then I tell them to come back to me if they notice any yellow goop.

As always, there are students who know that if they rub their eye enough that it will turn red and their teacher will write them a one way pass to my office. If there is no drainage, then I send them back and call the teacher to say that I can't raise the red flag until I see both redness and drainage.

If I think it's pink eye-- I clean any single thing they may have touched with antiseptic wipes and scrub my hands raw. I hate pink eye. When my oldest was 4 and my twins were almost 1 they kept passing it around. It took me 4 weeks to get it out of my house!

nyy2 · Nov 13, 2015

I agree with kidzcare....if it is allergies it is usually both eyes. The most important thing to assess for is drainage. When I worked at a pediatrician's office they stressed the "recurrent drainage" to meet the criteria for pink eye. So not the slight eye crust or "sleepies" that occur only in the morning, but literally goopy drainage that returns after being wiped away.

Most of the teachers at my school panic at any redness of the eye and want them sent home right away. Recently I had a teacher not too happy with me for not sending a child home with a red eye, but magically 2 hours after she sent him down the eye was perfectly clear with no issues! :rolleyes:

takuntz82 · Nov 13, 2015

The kids I am seeing are usually just one pink eye without drainage. I think they just rubbed their eye or accidentally poked themselves and forget by the time they get here. They are usually K-2 so I think the teachers worry a bit and send them right to me. Thanks for making me feel a little better !

Flare, ASN, BSN · Nov 14, 2015

i rinse red eyes with no drainage and advise return for and drainage developing. Usually a rinse or two is all it needs to get the dust, pollen, eye crusties, whatevs out of the picture. Gotta love my middle schoolers that have already diagnosed themselves and convinced their teachers that they are going home in hopes of missing the rest of the day.

SnowyJ, RN · Nov 14, 2015

I use an eye cup to rinse eyes too. Then I put an ice cube in a small ziplock covered with a paper towel and have the student hold that on the eye for a bit. More often than not, the redness resolves.

JenTheSchoolRN, BSN, RN · Nov 16, 2015

I have these charts handy for pink-eye rule out :). [And 9.5/10 - if bilateral, it is allergies on my end. Does not stop teacher freakouts, of course.]

NutmeggeRN, BSN · Nov 16, 2015

Most of the teachers at my school panic at any redness of the eye and want them sent home right away. Recently I had a teacher not too happy with me for not sending a child home with a red eye, but magically 2 hours after she sent him down the eye was perfectly clear with no issues!

Its a miracle! https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQsovGNcfrTqQzmGCYiuQmz1Gb4rTZtAyAACzq04ovYagANmpX7!!

MrNurse(x2), ADN · Nov 16, 2015

Thanks for the question, and thank you Jen-Elizabeth for your great resources. Will definitely take advantage of those.

Farawyn · Nov 17, 2015

I have these charts handy for pink-eye rule out :). [And 9.5/10 - if bilateral, it is allergies on my end. Does not stop teacher freakouts, of course.]

For the win.

takuntz82 · Nov 17, 2015

These are awesome - thanks !!

NuresMaggie · Nov 30, 2015

We just returned from Thanksgiving break and several days of cold where home heaters have been running. My eyes were bothering me over the weekend and I had to treat myself with some moisture.

Today I had two kid show up with one red eye. Not very red and no drainage. One student denied any drainage, the other had some one morning over the weekend but none since. I rinsed the eyes of them both and sent them back to class.

One of them, the one with NO drainage, came back wanting to get out of P.E.! :dead: He said the air would hurt his eye if he ran. lol I marched him back to class and found out that he had told the coach he had Pink Eye.

Anyone else have an increase in eye-redness when we start using heat and if so, ever just one eye?

Thanks. :-)