After spending two days with an eye patch I will say, quit thinking "It will never happen to me"...it will.
I've gotten little irritants in my eye working outside or working in the garage before, but they generally resolve themselves in a day or so with no problems. I am careful to wear safety glasses when mowing and weedeating and I wear a full face shield when grinding/cutting on metal...ALMOST every time. I am guilty of starting a cut then grabbing the gear, or doing a quick one without protection, it finally caught up with me.
Friday night I was doing up a stand for my drum smoker. A long mix of cutting, welding, grinding and drilling metal. At the end of the night my eyes felt a bit irritated but I just thought I was tired or got a minor flash burn from welding. I was careful though, I had safety glasses on all night and even wore the face mask when grinding.
It was more bothersome Saturday, but not horrible. Saturday night after working in the garage it was bugging the crap out of me, and I knew there was something in my eye. It was watering and burning, even making giving me the sniffles in one side of my nose.
Woke up Sunday morning and my eye was red as crap and swollen half shut. I spent most of the day trying to flush it with water using a little eye cup, even got in the cold ass pool and swam with my eyes open to try and flush it out, no luck.
Finally went to the 24 hour care place by my house. The Dr. there tried flushing it with saline and even dabbed at the speck with a swab, still no luck By this time my eye was so red and sore from everyone poking at it that I could barely even blink it, and my other eye was starting to show signs of duress from over work. The 24 hour place gave me a referral to an Opthamologist so I could get in early Monday morning, the Dr. was pretty concerned with getting it out of my eye since we were going on 48 hours.
Monday morning I actually felt better, I attributed that to the anti-biotic eye drops that I got from the 24 hour place. The eye did feel much less scratchy so I wondered if the metal had come out on its own. Opthamologist confirmed that the metal worked itself out, but we still had the rust ring to contend with, so out came the eye drill.
If you have never had a hole drilled in your eyeball, you ain't lived. He numbed my eye with some drops, then came at me. I will never forget the sight of that needle coming at my eye, knowing there would be contact, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Once the needle/drill thing passed my peripheral vision I was OK, and the actual drilling took just a second, and there was no pain at all. The vision of that thing though, the dentist has nothing on the eye doctor.
The doctor made me wear a pressure patch, a wadded up hunk of gauze taped to my face. The pressure of the gauze on your eyelid keeps you from blinking. He said Saturday the metal was probably mobile and scratched the crap out of everything before embedding itself, probably when I was rubbing it Saturday night. All was well though, he wanted a solid 36 hours with no blinking, which continues it irritate everything, to help it heal up.
Of course driving home from the doctors office on Monday , my wife had to stop at Walgreens for a proper black eyepatch that she made me wear around the house for the past two days, so she could constantly say ARRRRGh and talk to me in Pirate language.
So after 4 days not so much painful as it was" sofa king irritating" eye problems, all is back to normal. My eye has lost almost all of the redness and inflammation,the eyepatch is gone, the dogs quit barking at the eyepatch and my wife has lost her wench accent, although it was kind of hot for a couple of hours.
I've gotten little irritants in my eye working outside or working in the garage before, but they generally resolve themselves in a day or so with no problems. I am careful to wear safety glasses when mowing and weedeating and I wear a full face shield when grinding/cutting on metal...ALMOST every time. I am guilty of starting a cut then grabbing the gear, or doing a quick one without protection, it finally caught up with me.
Friday night I was doing up a stand for my drum smoker. A long mix of cutting, welding, grinding and drilling metal. At the end of the night my eyes felt a bit irritated but I just thought I was tired or got a minor flash burn from welding. I was careful though, I had safety glasses on all night and even wore the face mask when grinding.
It was more bothersome Saturday, but not horrible. Saturday night after working in the garage it was bugging the crap out of me, and I knew there was something in my eye. It was watering and burning, even making giving me the sniffles in one side of my nose.
Woke up Sunday morning and my eye was red as crap and swollen half shut. I spent most of the day trying to flush it with water using a little eye cup, even got in the cold ass pool and swam with my eyes open to try and flush it out, no luck.
Finally went to the 24 hour care place by my house. The Dr. there tried flushing it with saline and even dabbed at the speck with a swab, still no luck By this time my eye was so red and sore from everyone poking at it that I could barely even blink it, and my other eye was starting to show signs of duress from over work. The 24 hour place gave me a referral to an Opthamologist so I could get in early Monday morning, the Dr. was pretty concerned with getting it out of my eye since we were going on 48 hours.
Monday morning I actually felt better, I attributed that to the anti-biotic eye drops that I got from the 24 hour place. The eye did feel much less scratchy so I wondered if the metal had come out on its own. Opthamologist confirmed that the metal worked itself out, but we still had the rust ring to contend with, so out came the eye drill.
If you have never had a hole drilled in your eyeball, you ain't lived. He numbed my eye with some drops, then came at me. I will never forget the sight of that needle coming at my eye, knowing there would be contact, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Once the needle/drill thing passed my peripheral vision I was OK, and the actual drilling took just a second, and there was no pain at all. The vision of that thing though, the dentist has nothing on the eye doctor.
The doctor made me wear a pressure patch, a wadded up hunk of gauze taped to my face. The pressure of the gauze on your eyelid keeps you from blinking. He said Saturday the metal was probably mobile and scratched the crap out of everything before embedding itself, probably when I was rubbing it Saturday night. All was well though, he wanted a solid 36 hours with no blinking, which continues it irritate everything, to help it heal up.
Of course driving home from the doctors office on Monday , my wife had to stop at Walgreens for a proper black eyepatch that she made me wear around the house for the past two days, so she could constantly say ARRRRGh and talk to me in Pirate language.
So after 4 days not so much painful as it was" sofa king irritating" eye problems, all is back to normal. My eye has lost almost all of the redness and inflammation,the eyepatch is gone, the dogs quit barking at the eyepatch and my wife has lost her wench accent, although it was kind of hot for a couple of hours.
