What causes red and itchy eyes in children?

Now with the departure of winter and the gradual arrival of spring, the weather is starting to warm up a little bit and is already very hot. Therefore, pollen and catkins are most likely to spread at this time, and it is easy to get allergies if they get on your body. Especially many children are born with poor resistance. If they are accidentally infected, it will cause redness and swelling of the eyes, and even cause severe itching.

That’s right, this is allergic conjunctivitis! Some people are very familiar with this disease because they are in an allergic state all year round; some people don’t know much about it because they are prone to allergies in this season; some people don’t know it at all because they are only allergic under specific circumstances.

Regardless of the type of allergic conjunctivitis, its cause is related to one's own physical constitution. It is innate and usually lasts a lifetime, but the onset of the disease requires a necessary condition - contact with allergens. Therefore, to treat allergies means to cut off the process of occurrence and development of allergies.

From a generalized perspective, allergies are the body's rejection reaction to adverse stimuli, warning individuals to avoid them so as to prevent them from harming the body. Regardless of whether contact with certain substances will actually harm the body's health, the body has already blacklisted these substances and rejected them as harmful substances.

Allergy is also a type of inflammation, but usually inflammation is characterized by redness, swelling, heat and pain. The only difference between it and the redness, swelling and itching of allergies is the degree. Because the inflammation is relatively mild, the local fever is not obvious, and the stimulation to the nerves is only itching, not reaching the level of pain. If it is a severe allergy, we usually tend to classify it as poisoning, such as severe drug rash.

Therefore, although allergies seem simple and not very harmful, they can sometimes be life-threatening, such as laryngeal edema. If we find that we are allergic to any substance, we should write it down so that we can inform the doctor when we experience allergic symptoms in the future. This will be very helpful for diagnosis and treatment.

Regarding the treatment of allergies, let’s take allergic conjunctivitis as an example to give a brief introduction.

First of all, you need to look for allergens. You can do an allergen test to find out if you are allergic to common allergens. Of course, if you are not allergic to common allergens, it will not be detected. But if you are lucky enough to find out, you need to find a way to isolate the allergens. For example, if you are allergic to dust in the working environment, you can change your job; if you are allergic to pets, you should stop keeping pets; if you are allergic to dust mites, you should wash and disinfect bedding and clothes. If you still have allergies after doing all of these, you can go to the hospital for desensitization treatment.

Secondly, when you know you are about to have an allergic reaction, use medication to control it first. For example, seasonal allergic conjunctivitis is usually caused by an allergy to pollen. You can start using sodium cromolyn eye drops when the flower buds grow out. It takes a week for the medicine to start working. Although it is a bit troublesome, it is still worth considering as an inexpensive and high-quality medicine.

Again, if you are already allergic, you can only use fast-acting anti-allergic drugs. For example, naphazoline eye drops can be used for mild allergies, only congestion and mild eye itching without other discomfort. Relatively fast-acting anti-allergic drugs include Emedin eye drops. The more effective ones are hormonal eye drops, such as dexamethasone eye drops, but they can only be used in emergencies and cannot be used for a long time. Long-term use can easily cause glaucoma. If that doesn't work, you'll need to use immunosuppressants, and you'll have to see an ophthalmologist.

When allergic conjunctivitis is accompanied by skin manifestations, or when suitable eye drops are not found for the time being, oral anti-allergic drugs can be taken. For example, chlorpheniramine can cause drowsiness, so if you need to maintain energy, you can take loratadine. Intravenous calcium gluconate injection is also effective for rapid relief of allergy symptoms. Commonly used anti-allergic methods include cold compresses, which can relieve itching and edema.