How long does it take for a child's keratitis to heal?

Keratitis is a common clinical problem that has a great impact on people's lives. Many people may suffer from keratitis. Children have relatively weak immunity and may be infected with keratitis if they do not pay attention to daily care. It is necessary to continue to take treatment measures for children's keratitis. Generally speaking, keratitis in children is not difficult to treat, but it is easy to recur. How long will it take for the child's keratitis to heal?

1. Symptoms

Recovery from keratitis is related to the child’s symptoms and treatment. For children suffering from keratitis, since the corneal epithelium contains abundant sensory nerve endings, they are particularly sensitive to symptoms. Pain, strong foreign body sensation, fear of bright light, tearing and inability to open the eyes are common presenting symptoms. Sometimes children will also feel that their vision has deteriorated and they cannot see things clearly. Generally speaking, keratitis is often accompanied by many other symptoms, such as congestion, redness, and edema around the cornea. The most serious sequelae are corneal ulcers and corneal perforations, which allow microorganisms to invade the eye, causing endophthalmitis and blindness. Therefore, parents of children with the disease have to be careful.

2. Impact

Corneal inflammation will inevitably affect vision to some extent, especially when the inflammation invades the pupil area, it is more serious. The corneal scar formed after the ulcer heals not only blocks the light from entering the eye, but also changes the curvature and refractive power of the corneal surface, making it impossible for objects to be focused on the retina to form a clear image, thereby reducing vision. The extent of vision loss depends entirely on the location of the scar. If it is located in the center of the cornea, even if the scar is small, it will have a great impact on vision.

3. Treatment

The basic principle of treating pediatric keratitis is to take all effective measures to quickly control the infection, strive for early cure, and minimize the sequelae of keratitis. Hot compress can dilate blood vessels in the eyes, relieve congestion, and promote blood flow, allowing ulcers to recover quickly. If there is a lot of secretion, the conjunctival sac can be flushed 3 times or more a day with normal saline or 3% boric acid solution to flush out the secretion, necrotic tissue, bacteria and toxins produced by bacteria. In this way, not only the factors that spread the infection are reduced, but also the concentration of the local medicine is ensured not to decrease.