Viral Conjunctivitis or “Sore Eyes”
(Epidemic KeratoConjunctivitis, EKC)
Everything you need to know
What is Viral Conjunctivitis?
Viral Conjunctivitis is an inflammation (swelling) of the conjunctiva (the outermost transparent covering of the white of the eye and the inside of the eyelids) in the eye. This inflammation may lead to redness, tearing, discharge, itching, and pain.
How does Viral Conjunctivitis spread?
Viral Conjunctivitis epidemics tend to occur in closed institutions (eg, schools, hospitals, camps, nursing homes, workplaces).
Direct contact with eye secretions is the major mode of transmission. This can happen by touching the hands of someone with the infection, or by touching contaminated surfaces or objects.
Other possible methods of transmission are air droplets and possibly swimming pools. The virus causing the infection can be recovered from the eye and throat for as long as 14 days after the onset of clinical symptoms.
What are the symptoms of Viral Conjunctivitis?
Typically, patients initially complain of an increasingly severe gritty sensation in one eye, starting from the nasal corner of the eye and spreading laterally. This is followed by marked lid swelling, tearing, itching, increased light sensitivity, and blurred vision. Similar, but usually much milder, manifestations commonly appear in the other eye in two to seven days.
The severity of Viral Conjunctivitis ranges from subclinical conjunctivitis to very severe disease with bacterial superinfection and with marked systemic symptoms such as generalized weakness and pain in the limbs. The involvement of the second eye is often so mild as to go unnoticed. A small painful lump in front of the ears may arise in some patients.
How can Viral Conjunctivitis be prevented?
To avoiding spreading Viral conjunctivitis (EKC), patients should be very careful not to touch others and not to share tissues, towels, or handkerchiefs and to wash their hands frequently as long as the eye is red. In fact, Hand washing by patients and their contacts has been considered the most effective measure for preventing transmission of the microorganism.
Children who are suffering from this infection should stay home from school until symptoms have resolved or until cleared by a doctor.
Patients who have Viral Conjunctivitis should follow the below mentioned measures religiously
- They should avoid touching their eyes whenever possible. If they do touch their eyes, they need to wash hands thoroughly with soap and running water
- They should use disposable tissues to wipe their eyes, blow their nose, sneeze or cough.
- Patients should avoid touching other people un necessarily
- They should throw away or carefully wash items (in hot water and detergent) that touch their eyes
- They should not share eye makeup or other items used on the eyes (e.g., towels, tissues, eye drops, eye medications)
- Use a separate towel and face cloth for each member of the household
- Cover your mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing.
How is Viral Conjunctivitis treated?
There is no definitive treatment available for viral conjunctivitis. It is a self resolving condition in most cases and goes away in about 1-2 weeks. Treatment is aimed to relieve the symptoms and prevent added super infection. Avoid self medication and use of over the counter medicines. Some of these medicines may do more harm than good.
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By Andy
23 Oct, 2014
Children Eye Care, Comprehensive Ophthalmology
Airoli, astigmatism, axis, CBD Belapur, cylinder, diopters, farsightedness, glasses, hyperopia, India, Kalamboli, Kamothe, kharghar, Mansarovar, myopia, navi mumbai, Nerul, New Panvel, Panvel, prescription, Sanpada, Seawoods, shortsightedness, spectacles, Vashi
Learn about your Glasses prescription
Glass prescription can be difficult to understand, especially when no one else in the family has worn glasses before. Most patients are puzzled by the ‘signs’ and ‘numbers’ on the glass prescription and would want to ask a lot of questions regarding it to the doctor, but are either too “shy” or they are gently “shoved out” of the consulting room for want of the doctor’s time.
This post will tell you most of the things that you need to know about your glass prescription.
But before that, let us review the common refractive error conditions.
Farsightedness (Hyperopia)
Farsightedness, or hyperopia, as it is medically termed, is a vision condition in which distant objects are usually seen clearly, but close ones do not come into proper focus. Farsightedness occurs if your eyeball is too short or the cornea has too little curvature, so light entering your eye is not focused correctly.
Nearsightedness (Myopia)
Nearsightedness, or myopia, as it is medically termed, is a vision condition in which close objects are seen clearly, but objects farther away appear blurred. Nearsightedness occurs if the eyeball is too long or the cornea, the clear front cover of the eye, has too much curvature. As a result, the light entering the eye isn’t focused correctly and distant objects look blurred.
Astigmatism
Astigmatism is a vision condition that causes blurred vision due either to the irregular shape of the cornea, the clear front cover of the eye, or sometimes the curvature of the lens inside the eye. An irregular shaped cornea or lens prevents light from focusing properly on the retina, the light sensitive surface at the back of the eye. As a result, vision becomes blurred at any distance.
Sphere
Sphere, often abbreviated as “sph” is the spherical refractive error, or nearsightedness or farsightedness. The first part of this number will be a plus or minus sign:
+ : farsighted, or longsighted prescription: hyperopia.
– : nearsighted, or shortsighted prescription: myopia.
0, Pl, or Plano : no error
How bad is the spherical prescription?
The number is in “diopters” but you don’t need to know too much about that, it’s a measure of how much the curvature of the eye is off from normal. Basically, the higher the number (ignoring the plus or minus), the worse the prescription.
Myopia (-)
0.00 to -3.00 : mild myopia
-3.00 to -6.00 : moderate myopia
-6.00 and higher : high myopia
Hyperopia (+)
0.00 to +2.25 : mild hyperopia
+2.25 to +5.00 : moderate hyperopia
+5.00 and higher : high hyperopia
Cylinder
Cylinder is the measure of astigmatism. Astigmatism is when there’s an irregular shape to the cornea, often described as a football shape. It causes blurriness at any distance. There are two measurements that go along with astigmatism, the first, cylinder, is a measure of how severe the astigmatism is.
How bad is the cylinder prescription?
Like the spherical error, the cylinder number is measured in diopters. The thing you want to pay attention to is the number. It may be written as a plus or a minus, but that doesn’t actually make any difference in how bad the prescription is. The higher the number after the plus or minus, the more severe the astigmatism.
0.00 to 1.00 : mild astigmatism
1.00 to 3.00 : moderate astigmatism
higher than 3.00 : severe astigmatism
Axis
The axis tells you which way the astigmatism is oriented on your child’s eye
If you think of astigmatism as a football shape, it makes sense that the football might be turned any direction. The axis number then, tells you the orientation of the astigmatism. The number is in degrees, it doesn’t have anything to do with how severe the astigmatism is, just how it is situated on your or your child’s eye.
Add
If you or your child needs bifocals, you will likely see a number here. This tells you how the prescription should be changed for close up. Let’s say your child has a regular glasses prescription of +3.00, if the add number is +1.00, then the near distance prescription will be +3.00 + 1.00, which equals +4.00 (3+1=4). In the same vein, if your child is nearsighted, say -4.00, but has an add of +2.00, then the near distance part of the bifocals will have a prescription of -4.00 + 2.00, which equals -2.00.
Sometimes, you don’t have an “Add” part of the prescription, and instead you’ll just see a prescriptions for distance vision and a separate prescription for near vision.
Hope you got to learn something about your Glasses prescription. Please click on the LIKE button below to help your friends also read this.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for any queries or feedback.
Adapted from littlefoureyes
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