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The Doctors Book of Home Remedies: Eye Redness

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Eye Redness

5 Ways to Wipe It Out

Do the whites of your eyes have more red lines than a road map? If so, here's what you can do.

Water your eyes. "It seems obvious, but if your red eyes are a result of not getting enough sleep, find a way to catch up on your rest," says Mitchell Friedlaender, M.D., a California ophthalmologist and director of corneal and external diseases in the Division of Ophthalmology at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in LaJolla, California. "Closing your eyes for 7 to 8 hours helps to rehydrate them. Without sleep the eyes can dry out. And dry eyes are red eyes."

Treat your eyelids. If your eyes are red when you wake up, the problem may not be in your eyes but on your eyelids. "It's called blepharitis, and it's a low-grade infection of your eyelids," says Dr. Friedlaender. "You can treat it by washing your eyelids with warm water at night before you go to bed. Make sure you cleanse the lids so that the debris, oils, bacteria, makeup, and dandruff on the lashes are all removed."

Look for the Red Badge of Aging

There's a patch of blood in the white of your eye, and you can't remember anything happening. There's no swelling, no pain, no loss of vision, nothing. Just a blotch of red.

If that's the case, then relax. "It's a common occurrence, especially if you're over 40," says Michael Marmor, M.D., an ophthalmologist and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at Stanford University Medical Center in California. "The blood will go away by itself. You can't do anything for it. Eyedrops won't do any good. It will go away by itself in one to two weeks. The hardest part of the whole thing will be trying to think up a story to explain to your friends how it happened."

Use drops sparingly. "Drops designed to get the red out have an agent in them that works to constrict your blood vessels," says Dr. Friedlaender. "They take the redness out by shrinking the blood vessels in your eye, which makes your eye look whiter for the time being.

MEDICAL ALERT

Protect Your Pupils

When you see blood in the white of your eye, that's okay, but it's not okay if you see blood covering your pupil. "Anytime there is blood inside the eye, over the pupil, that's serious and you need to see a doctor right away," says Michael Marmor, M.D., an ophthalmologist and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at Stanford University Medical Center in California.

"Many times you won't actually see the bleeding, but your eye will hurt, your vision will be blurred, or you'll have a pinkish haze. If any of these symptoms is present, you know something is wrong, and you need medical treatment."

"The problem is, most of those drops have a rebound effect so that when they wear off in a couple of hours, the redness comes back worse than it was in the first place."

The best advice: Use eyedrops sparingly.

Shed crocodile tears. Do you arrive at work bright-eyed, but leave in the red? "Redness that comes on during the day is caused by dryness," says Dr. Friedlaender. "If that's the case, over-the-counter artificial tears can be used to moisten the eyes." Unlike other eyedrops, artificial tears do not shrink blood vessels.

Get your eyes to cool it. "Use a cool, wet washcloth and lay it over your closed eyes," says Dr. Friedlaender. "The cold will constrict the blood vessels without the rebound effect, plus the water will add moisture to your eyes."

PANEL OF ADVISERS

Mitchell Friedlaender, M.D., is an ophthalmologist and director of corneal and external diseases in the Division of Ophthalmology at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, California.

Michael Marmor, M.D., is an ophthalmologist and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at Stanford University Medical Center in California.

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