My 11-week old son has blocked tear ducts in both eyes. I have been massaging the tear ducts (per my dr) and giving him eurythromicin (spelling?) in the eyes once daily. Both eyes still secrete green throughout the day, and they are very crusty when he wakes up after sleeping for a few hours. He doesn't seem to be bothered by it and the dr told me to wait and see if he grows out of it, but it seems like a lot of green to be coming out of his eyes. Of course he never secretes green when we are at the dr so they don't see the full extent of it - I really need them to see it about 2am (I even have thought of taking a photo to show how bad it gets but I hate to use the flash and wake him up!). Is this normal? What are other people's experiences with blocked tear ducts? I am familiar with quite a few other parents whose children both grew out of this and some who needed surgery, but no one seems to remember how much green there was. Could this be a sign of an infection or of allergies (my 18-month old daughter has signs of allergies and my husband has terrible allergies, so it wouldn't be unreasonable that he would have them, too, but I thought they didn't get allergies until they were older). Any advice or other experiences would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you, everyone, for your responses! The ducts actually seem to be getting much better - one eye hasn't been bad for a few days now and the other one is much less goopy than it used to be. I guess I just need to hang in there!
All 3 of my grandkids had blocked tear ducts and they cleared up by the time they were a year old. Clear, yellowish and green are the normal colors. The green is tough because you automatically think it's an infection but it isn't.
Hi Melissa! My son who is now 21 mths old had the blocked tear ducts since birth w/the green & yellow stuff!! His eyes would be gluded shut in the morning!!! It was kinda like the boogers were coming out of his eyes. My son had it bad & we did eye drops & massage for mths then finally we did the eye probbing (sp). In which didnt work the first time so we had to do it a second time & it took about 2 weeks after that to be finally clear. So he has been clear for about 2 mths now. But yes we had it bad (w/green & yellow)& I thought the same thing something is wrong. But everything turned out good & just keep doing what ur doing & they might switch the eye drops if the ones your using now dont fully clear it up. We used like 3 different eye drops. Good luck!
Anytime my babies had green gook in their eye or I suspected things were getting clogged, I would express a little milk into a sterile cup and flush their eyes. Breastmilk has all sorts of healing properties in it and it has always cleared up my baby's eyes. I have never had to resort to medication. Try that and see how it works!
My daughter had both ducts clogged until about 13 months of age. Very gooky - very similar to your post and other posts... glued shut each morning. I cleaned them with warm wash cloths each morning, after nap, and evening. My dr. said the massage doesn't really make a difference and since she didn't like it, I didn't do that much. Just as my doctor and everyone here has said, they clear up and they did. One day they were gone - very suddenly. Hang in there. Also know the clogs are worse if they have a runny nose or cold b/c the tear ducts drain into the nose.
My daughter had blocked tear ducts for a little over a year. They did clear up all by themselves. Use a nice warm washcloth to help clear away the "goo" . My daughter did develop allergies also and would get sinus infection after sinus infection. It wasnt until she was placed on allergy medicine at 4yrs did it help and she has not had one sinus infection since. Because her nose ran so much it was difficult to tell it was allergies as by the 4-5 day it would turn to a sinus infection. Finally, we told the doctor that we were tired of her constantly being sick and she had a very severe reaction to an antiboitic that was prescribed after a third time for the sinus infection. He reviewed her chart and started her on the nasal spray and benadryl at the time and she has been healthy for the past 2 years.
It seems that the doctors prefer for the child to be treated or tested for allergies until they are older. I think because we pushed even harder that we recieved the results.
Jenn
Hi Melissa,
My daughter went through the same thing, the tearing, the eye crust, etc. I don't have a single picture of her before the age of 1 where her eyes don't look glassy! My pediatrician had me massage her eyes/ducts with a warm compress or soft washcloth. Unfortunately, nothing worked until she had her tear ducts probed at the age of one. It was a pain to wait til then, but if the surgery is done earlier, there is a greater chance of them blocking up again. Once she had the probe, everything was fine. Since you asked about allergies, one thing I should mention was that she did end up having many ear infections (she had to have tubes put in twice and her adenoids removed)... they think there's a chance the eye/ear problem could be related. Thankfully, she does not have any allergies and she will be turning five in June.
Hope this helps!
K.
(SAHM of three - daughter almost 5, son almost 3 and my baby girl, who will be one tomorrow!)
