Today's tip: Ditch the baby shampoo or dilute it more

[Rebecca Petris]

Many patients & doctors have reported eye irritation from regular use of the traditional baby shampoo "lid scrub", consisting of scrubbing the lid margins with Q-tips dipped in a solution of baby shampoo and water (or some variation on that theme). The shampoo is simply too harsh for many people with chronic dry eye.

Consider not using shampoo or any "detergent" at all. Unisol (unpreserved saline by Alcon) may be a good alternative for sensitive, vulnerable eyes.

If you do use baby shampoo, make sure you are diluting it enough! Most "recipes" I've seen call for at least 7 parts water to 1 part baby shampoo.

[mary kenny badami]

Whoops! did I ever get a misleading image . . .

. . . given the size of my monitor, the title of this thread showed up as: "Today's tip: Ditch the baby . . . "
. . . which left me hugely puzzled about how abandoning one's teeny-tiny children would in any way help a person to cope with dry eyes. . .
. . . and much relieved to read the entire content of Rebecca's post . . . it's the shampoo, the baby shampoo !

[dianat]

...hey, no kidding! I had the same question when I saw the title...only I HAVE a baby. I, of course, would never ditch him. I will admit that if he slept a little better it would be good for my eyes!

[jcorbett]

I like to use very diluted baby shampoo to wash my eyelids. With the eyes closed, just to be clear. When my eyes would get irritated, particularly in spring or in the evening, sometimes just washing the eyelids seemed to help a lot. But I use Unisol to do scrubs.

[indrep]

For those that need a little more cleaning visit www.lidhygenix.com. The surgeon who developed this is a cornea specialist and worked diligently to create a water based cleanser. No stinging, no dilution necessary and seems to be well tolerated by my wife's eyes.