Why Is the Eye Pink in Pink Eye?
Pink eye results from inflammation of the conjunctiva, the clear membrane covering the white part of the eye (sclera) and interior lining of the eyelids.
Although the conjunctiva is transparent, it contains most of the blood vessels on the eye's surface. So anything that triggers eye inflammation will cause these conjunctival blood vessels to dilate. This contributes to the eye's pink or reddish appearance, particularly evident against the backdrop of the white sclera.
Pink Eye Symptoms and Causes
The way your eyes feel and look will provide some clues about the type of pink eye you have. Besides causing a pink eye, conjunctivitis also can make your eye hurt or itch.
Who Gets Pink Eye?
Anyone of any age can have pink eye. But children contract conjunctivitis more often than adults because they have plenty of colds and respiratory tract infections that can be an underlying cause.
Preventing Pink Eye in Children
Because children are in close contact in day care centers and classrooms, it is difficult to avoid the spread of bacteria and viruses causing pink eye. The following information can help parents, day care workers and teachers reduce the risk of a pink eye outbreak:
Personal items, including hand towels, should never be shared at school or at home.
Teach children to use tissues and cover their mouths and noses when they sneeze or cough.
Discourage eye rubbing and touching, to avoid spread of bacteria and viruses.
Adults in schools and day care centers should wash their hands frequently and have children do the same. Soap should always be available for this.
Antiseptic solutions should be used constantly to clean surfaces such as common toys, table tops, drinking fountains, sinks and faucet handles.
Despite all these precautions, your child still may develop pink eye. If so, be considerate of others and do your part to keep the infection from spreading.
Tell your child's teacher or caretaker about the infection so that extra steps can be taken to sanitize classrooms or day care centers.
Minimize exposure by keeping your child home until the contagious stage has passed. Your doctor can let you know when your child can interact with others again safely, usually about three to five days after the diagnosis.
Newborn babies also are at significant risk for pink eye. This is because a baby can obtain a bacterial infection causing pink eye while making contact with its mother during the birth process. In fact, according to Ferri's Clinical Advisor 2008, conjunctivitis is found in 1.6 percent to 12 percent of all newborn babies in the United States.
Sometimes, infections in newborn infants are due to common pathogens such as strep or staph. A mother who is infected with a sexually transmitted disease, such as gonorrhea or chlamydia, also can pass along this infection to the baby — which can show up as pink eye.
This is why newly born infants must be evaluated for gonococcal and chlamydial conjunctivitis as well as other forms, so antibiotic treatment can begin immediately, before any eye damage occurs.
As a precaution, most newborn infant eyes are treated with silver nitrate and/or antibiotic ointments, to make sure any possible infections are stopped before they can cause damage. However, this preventive treatment does not work for chlamydial conjunctivitis, which must be treated with antibiotics after a diagnosis.
When exposed to infected secretions, sexually active adults also can have pink eye due to bacteria associated with STDs. If you have a heavy discharge of mucus from your eyes, and other causes of pink eye have been ruled out, be sure and relate any concerns you might have to your doctor.
Contact lens wearers particularly are vulnerable to pink eye, which can be caused by infections from poor hygiene in the handling of lenses, solutions and cases. Also, some soft contact lens wearers can develop an abnormal immune response that can cause giant papillary conjunctivitis (GPC).
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