Today I made a discovery

I’ve been feeling some bitterness on my throat since last week, I was trying to search for the cause of this irritating sense up and down, let and right. At first I thought it was the new water bottle that I started to use, so I changed to my bottled. It did not help. Then I thought it was the supplement that I started to eat, so I stopped for a few days. It did not help either. I told my mom about it, and she said “I could be the eye drop that you are using, I had the same problem before” I didn’t bother about the statement.

Today I read from a chinese newspaper that our normal way of using eye drop is wrong, i.e. we should not squeeze a drop of the medication into the eye and blink for a few times, this is wrong because the medicine will possibly drain to the whole body and some of the content may harm the heart or body. We should instead press our finger on both the inner corner of the eye after using eye drop to prevent the medicine from draining to the body.

First, I was surprised that the eye drop can actually drain to the body and second I don’t understand how by pressing the inner corner of the eye can prevent the eye drop from draining to the body:-

According to Wikipedia, there is a tube that connects your tear duct to your nasal passage called the nasolacrimal duct. The nasolacrimal duct carries tears from the lacrimal sac into the nasal cavity. Excess tears flow through nasolacrimal duct which opens in the nose. This is the reason the nose starts to run when a person is crying, or why one can sometimes taste eye drops. So I take it that all these are connected, that’s how the eye drop can drain from eye – nose – throat, and what my mom said is true.

Then I found this in one of the eye drop practice guidance by Royal Pharmaceutical Society in Great Britain, guess what the newspaper said is also true. And on top of these two discoveries, I also noticed that we should pull the lower eyelid instead of the upper eyelid to apply the eye drop, why have I been so wrong? I’ve been literally “swallowing” eye drop for almost one week, and I get to realize this on the last day of the treatment.

“Patients should be advised to wash and dry hands before and after use. Tilt the head back and gently pull the LOWER EYELID out to form a pouch. Squeeze the bottle to release one drop into the lower eyelid. Try not to touch the eye or lashes with the nozzle. Blink several times to help spread the drug. Repeat the process for each drop used. Eye infections tend to spread to the other eye (and to other people — avoid sharing towels, facecloths, etc), so it is usual to use the drops in both eyes if they are both infected.

Patients sometimes get a taste of eye drops in the mouth or a feeling that drops are running down the throat. Pressing a finger against the inner corner of the eye (by the nose) for about a minute after using the drops may help to stop the drops draining into nose and throat.”

So tuan-tuan and puan-puan, please follow instruction next time when you have to use eye drop. I tried and it really worked no more eye drop tasting and in fact when I pressed the inner eye corner, I can feel the eye drop is filling up around the eye pocket and the eye is totally soaked in the moisture until it almost overflows.