Conjunctivitis
October 20, 2008
The outer most layer of eye is called conjunctiva, and conjunctivitis occurs in this optic part. Colloquially, it is called pink eye because the attack of this disease turns eye to reddish color and runs with tear. There are three types of conjunctivitis like viral conjunctivitis, allergic conjunctivitis, and bacterial conjunctivitis. Although the symptoms for all the three types of conjunctivitis are more or less same, but treatment requirement is absolutely different in each case. Except allergic conjunctivitis, other types are contagious in nature.
The viral infection comes with some other symptoms like sore throat, infection in respiratory track, or with slight fever.
Allergic type of conjunctivitis is comparatively seasonal and occurs with other allergic symptoms like itching in the other parts of body sometimes accompanied by body rash. Sometimes sensitivity of some other elements causing allergy may result in allergic conjunctivitis. For example, person suffering from shell allergy may suffer from allergic conjunctivitis after consumption of sea foods with allergic rash in body.
Due to allergy in perfume, cosmetics, and some specific drugs, this kind of allergic conjunctivitis can recur in eyes frequently. That is why, to treat the infection, we need to contact doctors for proper diagnosis of the infection and necessary advice on medication.
The symptoms of viral conjunctivitis are swollen eyes, irritation, watery discharge, and contamination spreads quickly from one eye to another. On the other hand, in case of allergic conjunctivitis affects in two eyes from the initial stage, common with symptoms like itching, tearing, and swollen eyelids.
Different types of conjunctivitis require different treatments; bacterial conjunctivitis is mostly treated by antibiotic eye drop that can destroy a wide range of bacterial infections and normalize the condition.
Allergic type of conjunctivitis is mainly treated by artificial tears and cold compress and in severe case by topical steroid drops, anti-inflammatory medicines. Viral conjunctivitis gets cured naturally and it takes 7-10 days to normalize the situation. In the interim period, cold compress and eye drops for creating artificial tear to remove the irritation are recommended by doctors still one should consult a doctor in case of this kind of infection in eye.
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