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

Keratitis is a very common eye disease, usually caused by eye infection, and is more common in children. If one child in a group is infected with keratitis, other children can easily be infected as well. Children with keratitis must pay attention to personal hygiene. If parents give them medication on time, the condition will gradually improve. The specific time depends on individual circumstances. This article introduces simple methods for treating pediatric keratitis. Let’s take a look if you need it.

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.

1. Hot compress : dilates blood vessels in the eyes, relieves congestion, and promotes blood flow, allowing ulcers to recover quickly.

2. Flushing: If there is a lot of secretion, you can use normal saline or 3% boric acid solution to flush the conjunctival sac 3 times or more a day 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.

3. Mydriasis: Atropine is the main and commonly used drug, with a concentration of 0.25-2% solution or ointment, which is dripped or applied 1-2 times a day (be sure to press the lacrimal sac after dripping the medicine to prevent the solution from being excessively absorbed by the mucous membrane and causing poisoning).

4. Bacteriostatic agents:

(1) Sulfonamide chemical preparations, such as 10%-30% sodium sulfacetamide and 4% sulfisoxazole eye drops.

(2) For Gram-positive coccal infections, topical application of 0.1% rifampicin eye drops, 0.5% erythromycin, or 0.5% bacitracin eye drops 4 to 6 times a day is sufficient to control the infection. Some broad-spectrum antibiotics such as 0.5% chloramphenicol, 0.25% chloramphenicol and 0.5% tetracycline (0.5%) are more effective in antibacterial effects.

(3) For infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria, you can choose 1%-5% streptomycin, 0.3%-0.5% gentamicin, polymyxin B (20,000 units/ml), 0.25-0.5% neomycin, 0.5% kanamycin, etc.

5. Bandaging and dressing:

(1) In order to stop the eyeball from rotating and promote the early healing of the ulcer, it must be bandaged. This treatment is particularly useful in winter. Because it not only prevents the eyeballs from getting cold, but also has a warming and protective effect.

(2) If there is secretion in the conjunctival sac, it should not be bandaged and can be replaced with a Bühler eye patch or black glasses. Furthermore, if the ulcer is about to rupture or is about to bulge during the scarring stage, a compression bandage should be applied daily. If this is not possible during the day, it should be applied at night while sleeping in order to prevent adverse consequences.

6. Etiology treatment:

(1) When treating corneal ulcers, attention must be paid to the cause of the ulcer and treatment must be given accordingly.

(2) The most important things to watch out for are conjunctivitis and malnutrition. For example, trachoma pannus ulcers are difficult to heal if the trachoma is not treated at the same time. For example, if you do not pay attention to overall nutrition and supplement vitamin A for corneal softening, not only will the corneal softening be difficult to heal, but it will also get worse.

7. Stimulation therapy: When the ulcer has completely healed and started to scar, efforts should be made to make the scar as thin as possible. For small, dense, and centrally located leukoplakia, iridectomy may be performed to improve vision. For larger white spots, a corneal transplant may be done. Sometimes corneal leukoplakia is unsightly and can be treated with corneal ink acupuncture using coal soot or Chinese ink.