Clogged Tear Duct - Granbury, TX

Don't worry. My little girl had the same thing, the dr said if she didn't clear up by 12 mths then he will clean it out himself. I got a little scared and started looking into it. I found out if you let a little breastmilk drop in her eyes that will eventually clear it up. I did, it helped and by the time she was 10 or 11 months, it cleared up. I did the breastmilk when i could. I just kept it cleared of the green stuff daily with a warm wash cloth and massaged it everyday. Good
luck and don't worry. it will clear up.

Hubby is a nurse and we went through this with one of our kiddo...just warm/hot water cloth on his eye a couple of times a day and within a week or so it should clear up. Good luck!

My daughter had this as well. Most of the time we just wiped it with a warm washcloth and it was fine but there were a few times it got infected and we had to do drops. There was a big increase of goop. It sounds like that might be your problem. I'd get it checked just to make sure.

Our daughter went throught the same thing. We just kept wipes or wet wash cloths around to clean her face when we saw the green stuff. Part of her green stuff was allergies and part was just the tear duct trying to clean itself out. Our dr suggested (both pedi and eye) we just leave it alone and not do surgery or mechanical opening of the duct. By age 3 we noticed a huge difference. Now she's 6 and we don't have a problem at all. I'm really glad that we didn't do anything about it and her body "healed" itself. BUT every child and parent is different. YOU DO WHAT YOU FEEL IS BEST FOR YOUR CHILD. In my opinion, mother's instict is NEVER wrong. Good Luck.

I think this is fairly common. Both my sons had it and their pedi said to massage the inner corner of the eye against the nasal bone firmly, but gently several times a day. It cleared up the problem in no time.

My daughter had the same problem except hers never went away until we took her to the eye doctor. She had tons of the green goop (and it seemed to be always red and crusty) come out all the time and we tried everything her pediatrician recommended (massaging w warm cloth, eyedrops, eye creams, etc...) and it still did not go away. Finally at 10 1/2 months her dr. referred us to an opthamologist to get her tear duct probed. We did not know a lot about it and the thought of it scared me but her opthamologist was awesome and did the probe in less than 2 minutes! She did not have to be sedated and it happened so fast I didn't have time to think about her being in pain. The opt. said that this was a very common procedure to do for kids w/ tear duct problems and it has over a 90% success rate. Ever since that probe, her eye has been flawless! Nothing has come out and it looks so good. If your massaging and time doesn't take away his problem, then talk to your doctor. If you have any questions about any of this, feel free to email me. Good luck!

Your request brings back many memories of my similar experience with my now almost 6 year son. Yes, it did resolve itself on it's own before he was 18 months (approx). Yes, we had the goopy stuff. Yes, i tried breast milk - a doctor rolled her eyes at me and told me i was adding to the goopy stuff by adding breast milk as breast milk has sugar and that increases chances of infection. She gave me saline solution to drop on the goopy area to clean it out (very safe & effective). My inlaws (both doctors) offered to schedule surgury for my son (at the time 6 months old) to have the problem immediately fixed. My husband was in agreement. I refused. So, no surgury. My advice to you is, first and foremost, use your mother's intuition and common sense...you probably know your son better than anyone else. Next...do the sterile saline drops and massages (mentioned in one of your replies). Lastly...hang in there. This is extremely minor and will resolve before you know it. I had forgotten all about it until i read your posting...don't worry to much about it (like i did as i probably got my first grey hairs from that event) ;)

My son had this problem and they told us the same thing but it cleared up before they had to do anything. We just got into a routine, everytime it was time to go get him out of his crib after he had been sleeping I went in with a warm washcloth to wipe his eyes and massage the tear ducts. Just massage gently around the corner of his eye and wipe all the goop away from his eye. We did have to do antibiotic eye drops a couple of times just in case because of the color of the goop and it seemed to go through spurts of really matting his eyes. Just keep up with keeping the goop clear of his eye and massaging the tear duct. If ever it drastically changes give the doctor a call. HTH

My granddaughter had this too and hers occasionally had green eye stuff in it or would be matted shut in the morning when she woke up. We just cleaned it out with a warm washcloth. It opened up when she was approx 7 months old and she hasn't had any problems with it since. Doctor said its fairly common in infants.

My daughter had this problem for weeks after she was born, on and off, until she was about 5 months old.

Her pediatrician told us to massage inner corner of her eye with a washcloth or cotton ball that was dampened with warm water. My husband and I got into the habit of massaging that corner every time she had a bottle; it eventually cleared up and now, at 13 months old, she's just fine.

Good luck to you!