What happens if you touch your eyeball with your finger?

Your hands carry the most germs of any part of your body, and touching your eyes and face can spread them easily. Your eyelids and lashes protect your eyes from some bacteria, but touching or rubbing them can lead to infections like conjunctivitis (pink eye).

Can touching your eye cause damage?

Rubbing too hard or too frequently might damage the lens of your eye or the cornea. This could result in vision impairment or an infection that needs medical attention. You should call your doctor right away if you experience: eye pain.

Can eye drops spoil?

Although unopened eye drops can go bad after their expiration date, opened ones have most likely been exposed to bacteria. In either case, ophthalmologists always recommend patients to dispose of eye meds that have reached their shelf life.

Can eye drops cause side effects?

Stinging/redness in the eye, widened pupils, or blurred vision may occur. If any of these effects persist or worsen, tell your doctor or pharmacist promptly.

What should you not do after eye drops?

It’s important that you take care not to let the tip of the eye drop bottle touch your eye or eyelashes. Touching the dropper tip with your hands or letting it touch any part of your face or eyes can introduce bacteria that can taint the drops. For this reason you also shouldn’t share eye drops.

What happens if you don’t sterilize a bottle?

You cannot completely remove any traces of harmful bacteria in your baby bottles, especially without proper sterilization. Harmful microorganisms like E. coli, salmonella, and other disease-producing viruses and bacteria may infect your infants.

Is it dangerous to touch the tip of an eyedrop bottle?

If you touched the tip of your eyedrop bottle then its almost certainly contaminated now. But that doesn’t mean it is necessarily infectious to your eyes… Unless you just autoclaved your hands then your skin will never be 100\% sterile, so you almost certainly will have contaminated the bottle. But most microbes on your skin are harmless.

Is it safe to use eye drops that have been contaminated?

Another reason why it may still be OK is because most eyedrop solutions (you don’t say what the drops are) have “preservatives” in them (like putting chlorine in pool water) – for If you touched the tip of your eyedrop bottle then its almost certainly contaminated now. But that doesn’t mean it is necessarily infectious to your eyes…

What happens if you put your finger in an eye drops?

But if you had anything at all on your finger: a virus, a bacteria, an amoeba, then it is now in your eyedrops, contaminating them.

What is the best way to use OTC eye drops?

Day to day OTC eyedrop bottle tips for allergies or dry eye etc., should be kept as clean as possible, without touching the tip, carefully putting the lid on after use. Avoid touching the eye with any type of eyedrop tip. It’s good if you can find your eyedrop in single use containers…twist top off, use, then toss..