Pink Eye

[AnnoyedGrunt]

Hey Dr Steve,

I'm sure you're busy and that by the time you get to this question it might be pretty obvious but I figured I'd ask anyway.

On Friday a woman I work with left early because of pink eye. This has me worried as I know it can be contagious and I had it a few times as a kid and it fucking blew. I did a quick search and there seem to be 3 different types of pink eye though I don't know what kind she had (but I'd guess it's viral since I doubt she would have come in if her eyes were crusted shut). While I don't share keyboard with her it is quite possible I did touch some things after her (staplers, mail or whatnot).

I'm just wondering what are the chances that I've been infected and if that's the case how long until I show symptoms?

[Dr Steve]

Hey Dr Steve,

I'm sure you're busy and that by the time you get to this question it might be pretty obvious but I figured I'd ask anyway.

On Friday a woman I work with left early because of pink eye. This has me worried as I know it can be contagious and I had it a few times as a kid and it fucking blew. I did a quick search and there seem to be 3 different types of pink eye though I don't know what kind she had (but I'd guess it's viral since I doubt she would have come in if her eyes were crusted shut). While I don't share keyboard with her it is quite possible I did touch some things after her (staplers, mail or whatnot).

I'm just wondering what are the chances that I've been infected and if that's the case how long until I show symptoms?



Grunt:

You're right, pink eye (conjunctivitis) can be extremely contagious.

There are three broad categories as you said:

1) Viral Conjunctivitis
The most common; no treatment for it other than symptomatic therapies. If you've already had the virus you're probably immune. Incubation period is variable depending on the virus...2-7 days sounds reasonable. Herpes tends to cause a particularly nasty version of this.

2) bacterial conjunctivitis
less common, caused by bacterial infection of the surface tissues of the eye and surrounding areas. Can be treated with antibiotics.

3) allergic conjunctivitis
not contagious at all, because it's called by irritants rather than an infection. can be treated with allergy medications (eye drops or oral)

http://www.visualdxhealth.com/images/dx/webAdult/conjunctivitis_46740_lg.jpg
sorry it has taken me so long to get to these questions...with the holidays and all I'm really behind on my ronfez.net duties.

Most doctors will opt to treat conjunctivitis with antibiotic eyedrops even though this is a less common cause, just because it's hard to tell the difference and you hate to miss treating a bacterial infection if it is one. Some docs advocate doing a swab of the eye and treating only if bacteria or white blood cells are seen, but this isn't commonly done, at least not among the doctors I know.

hope this helps.


If you get symptoms, write back and I'll try to give you some things to do.

your pal,


steve

[AnnoyedGrunt]

Thanks Dr. Steve. I got in to work today and I got the word that it turns out that she didn't have pink eye after all. It was another kind of eye infection or something but the details are sketchy.