MotherSpirit Article: Natural Healing for Pink Eye

Natural Healing for Pink Eye

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My daughter woke up with her eyes crusted shut and pretty slimy. I'm assuming pinkeye, but do not know for sure since it is allergy season. I broke down and called her pediatrician this morning after much eye rubbing and crying and was told they do not see pinkeye cases, they need the name of our pharmacy so they can call in a prescription of antibiotic eyedrops.

We don't have a pharmacy to call.

How can they prescribe antibiotics for something they haven't seen? What if she DOESN'T have pinkeye, but allergies? They want me to put unnecessary antibiotics in her eyes so that one day when she REALLY needs the antibiotic it won't work right?? (am I correct in assuming this might happen with unnecessary antibiotic eyedrops??)

I'm trying to get an appointment at the acupuncture college so they can recommend some herbal and natural relief for her, but until then, what can I do?

THE RESPONSES:

squeeze breastmilk into her eye!!!!!!
Breast milk will fix 'er up either way! I have treated pink eye in my entire family (yes, even dh) by squirting breastmilk into the eye. This works for pretty much all eye irritations (that I've heard of). I have very severe hayfever and use BM in an eye dropper for relief all the time. The eye dropper can be used for babies and kids too. My almost 4yo will gladly let me squirt her, but my 4mo just dives for my nipple so I have to use the dropper on him
- Our breastfeeding relationship unfortunately ended at 10 months, but I just went searching through my freezer and found a 6 oz. bag of EBM from January - 6 months old.... still good to use in her eyes??

I thought I heard somewhere that freezing milk (especially for long periods of time) does freeze out or lessen the antibacterial properties of EBM. I'd still try it though. When we had pink eye, I went to my neighbor and asked her for some - she thought it was a little odd but she gave it to me nonetheless and it worked wonders! I'd try it first regardless because the second time my son had pink eye, he got it in the back of his eyeball (I forget what they call that) and it was so gnarly. We had to do the antib drops and it was a nightmare trying to get them in

Since you don't have any breastmilk (I find it hard to squirt some out anyway) you can use calendula tincture. Get some that is glycerin based (not alcohol) and dilute it and then put a couple drops in her eye. This helped my son a lot. Also, the homeopathic remedy Euphrasia is great for pink eye (these are tablets).

And thanks for the advice on the pinkeye. The acupuncture school gave us some herb bags with calendula, chamomile and one more thing that I can't remember off the top of my head. This, with some of my frozen breastmilk (warmed, of course) seems to have done the trick and relieved the itch and redness

My Mom used to put tea bags on our eyes when we had crusty eyes. It always worked. She made tea with them first, and then put them on our eyes when they were cool enough. My friend tried it and it worked. Just an idea