blocked tear duct

ladylisalt

My DD had/has a blocked tear duct. The doctor just said to massage it a few times a day. Did anyone get any other recommendations or is that pretty much what you were told?

greyt00

I dealt with this in myself and DS2.  At first, yes, that's what we were told.  The ophthalmologist said after he turned 9 months they could do a procedure to force it open.  The massaging got really old, and I'm sorry but I work full time outside the home, so it's just not that feasible, and I didn't think it was going to work.  DS2's eyes were getting gooked up all the time.  At 9 months we did the procedure. It looked awful, I couldn't watch, and I felt sort of bad doing that to him (they use numbing gel, but I wonder....)  Anyway, the reason I did it is because I realized this is what happened to me.  As a young baby my eye (the same one even, the right) got gooked up all the time.  Then, it just stopped happening.  My mom thought I was OK.  But my entire life, my right eye has teared excessively.  It's really annoying.  When I'm tired, it waters.  When it's windy, it waters.  When it's cold, it waters.  When it gets bad, it looks like I'm crying out of 1 eye.  I didn't want DS2 to have to deal with that for the rest of his life.  I think it helped.  I remember a couple of times maybe where there was a small drop below that eye (and nothing on the left).  He's 2 years 3 months now and I don't recall seeing it happen in a long time.  Maybe it worked.  I hope so.  It was covered under co-pay for an in-network doctor on my insurance.

This is not to say she wouldn't grow out of it, that the rubbing would work... But my mom did that to me, and it didn't work.  She just thought it did because the gookiness stopped (same thing for DS2). 

rsideemd

greyt00 said:

I dealt with this in myself and DS2.  At first, yes, that's what we were told.  The ophthalmologist said after he turned 9 months they could do a procedure to force it open.  The massaging got really old, and I'm sorry but I work full time outside the home, so it's just not that feasible, and I didn't think it was going to work.  DS2's eyes were getting gooked up all the time.  At 9 months we did the procedure. It looked awful, I couldn't watch, and I felt sort of bad doing that to him (they use numbing gel, but I wonder....)  Anyway, the reason I did it is because I realized this is what happened to me.  As a young baby my eye (the same one even, the right) got gooked up all the time.  Then, it just stopped happening.  My mom thought I was OK.  But my entire life, my right eye has teared excessively.  It's really annoying.  When I'm tired, it waters.  When it's windy, it waters.  When it's cold, it waters.  When it gets bad, it looks like I'm crying out of 1 eye.  I didn't want DS2 to have to deal with that for the rest of his life.  I think it helped.  I remember a couple of times maybe where there was a small drop below that eye (and nothing on the left).  He's 2 years 3 months now and I don't recall seeing it happen in a long time.  Maybe it worked.  I hope so.  It was covered under co-pay for an in-network doctor on my insurance.

This is not to say she wouldn't grow out of it, that the rubbing would work... But my mom did that to me, and it didn't work.  She just thought it did because the gookiness stopped (same thing for DS2). 

We were told to massage it until DD turned one. Then, we were told we could do the procedure  the PP mentioned if we wanted to. We decided to wait until she got a little bit older. In the meantime, it stopped on it's own and we haven't had any problems in maybe 6 to 9 months.

smileybabyboy

I had tubes in my tear ducts when I was little. I remember seeing pictures of myself with tears running down my face all the time, so I guess it helped because that doesn't happen anymore.