Eye Infections

Eye infections have a fancy name, conjunctivitis, though families often refer to these entities as pink eye. These infections come in two flavors most of the time: viral or bacterial. 

Viral conjunctivitis is the most common type, where kids develop pink or reddened eyes in the setting of a viral illness often alongside a cough and cold symptoms. It can also produce more clear secretions from the eye, often leaving flaky and crusty remnants on the eyes after sleeping. Both eyes are usually affected as the whole body is fighting off some viral insult. Viral conjunctivitis does not need to be treated with antibiotics as the infection is viral and not bacterial. 

This is in contrast to bacterial conjunctivitis, which usually causes an abundance of discharge and accompanying eyelid swelling. The discharge is super snotty looking, and as soon as you wipe it away, more discharge is there in a matter of minutes. Oftentimes only one eye is pink or red with discharge unless the kiddo touches their infected eye and then touches their other eye to self-transfer the infection. This is why when we prescribe antibiotic eye drops for bacterial conjunctivitis we often ask families to place the drops in both eyes because I do not know about you, but I don’t trust a 3-year-old with snot coming out of their eye to make sure and wash their hands before touching their noninfected eye.