How do you know if you scratched your cornea?

I’ve had scratched corneas a few times mostly due to wearing my contacts too much. They’re usually very itchy and your vision can get really blurry. My optician basically told me to stop wearing contacts and put moisturizing eye drops in often. Usually cleared up in a week or a bit more. You’ve got that tag ‘pain’ in there so I think you’d probably be better off just getting them checked out.

Like paulc said, pain.

I am just getting over having pink eye, but every now and then my eye itches and hurts like hell. I noticed it happens when I put my drops in. Then it will go away and the hurt and itches like crazy again.

Go get your eye looked at for a definite answer. although any real damage to you and your eye would hurt whenever it was touched, like by your eyelids. I would replace the contact since wearing damaged contacts can damage your eyes. if that doesn’t take care of the pain then I would see an opthamologist since there are other reasons like infection, or an allergic reaction that can cause pain from wearing contacts, :)

I don’t wear contacts.

O…........Use a damp hand towel with cold water and slowly dab your eyes. That will make you feel like new.

It’s probably not too serious; however, your eyes are impotant enough not to fool around with. I would recommend contacting your doctor tomorrow & explain the situation & see what he advises. If your doctor is off tomorrow, then either chat with a nurse or go to an urgent care.

PS – I wasn’t able to drive for a couple of weeks because of vision issues. It totally sucks… & I’m so happy I can drive again & read, & watch TV. Seriously, don’t mess around with your eyes!!!

Here are 14 answers to the same question asked a month ago. There may be other good advice, some of which might help. I would take any idea here that “will make you feel like new” with a grain of salt.

Scratched cornea

I once knee-ed myself in the eye rather hard, I went to the doctor and they put an orange dye in my eye to see if there was any damages such as a scratch. I agree with the above responses, go to the doctor. Better to be cautious than have long-term damage.

@everyone: Thanks for the information.

@tennis5tar: What were you doing to knee your own eye???

@ babygalll: I was trying to learn how to do a front-summi. I was doing it off a trampette and my PE teacher was spotting me. I’m quite tall and kinda lost my legs during the rotation. I landed on my bum, my legs were bent and feet were to the floor, but my torso kept on going (Newtons law of motion and all that jazz). Smashed right into my eye. Got a bit of a shiner and a trip to minor injuries. :D I’m definately not a natural gymnast!

Corneal lacerations are extremely painful and the pain does not abate until the injury is healed or medications are used to dull the pain – if it doesn’t hurt all of the time, you probably don’t have an ulcer.

A simple test will determine if you have an ulcerated cornea. Fluorescien stain is an orange colored substance that is only taken up when there is a tear in the outermost layer of the cornea. If the cornea is intact, the stain flushes away. If there is a laceration, the stain will stick and cause a greenish discoloration. The entire test takes less than 10 seconds.

If you have a corneal ulcer, your doctor will most likely place you on two medications. One will be for the pain (probably atropine) and one will be an antibiotic. The antibiotic does not speed the healing progress, but it does prevent an opportunistic bacterial infection from creating additional (and severe) complications.

@syz—my cat suffers from chronic eye infections & that is EXACTLY what they do to her eyes. The stain thingie is pretty cool.

If the human eye is anything like a kitty eye, once the meds start it clears up really quickly.

@LunaFemme – That’s actually where I know about it, from veterinary medicine, LOL.