Why are my allergy eye drops burning so badly today?

Posted by Lisa Lucier, Moderator @lisalucier, Mar 26 9:18am

I have used allergy eye drops for many years, previously lodoxamide (Alomide) and now cromolyn sodium ophthalmic solution. This helps my eyes to prevent itchiness from allergies.

Yesterday morning I got quite a surprise, though, when I used my drops and immediately my eyes began burning pretty intensely. I could not understand why this would happen ...

I grabbed the bottle to look at it and immediately noticed it looked very slightly taller than my usual eye drops bottle. It was: I had put ear wax softening drops in my eyes by mistake! (They were out on the counter, as I was also addressing that problem yesterday.)

As you can imagine, I performed a massive eye wash. All turned out fine, and the burning feeling subsided and my vision is fine.

Just a word to the wise ... be careful to put the right drops in your eyes ...

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Asthma & Allergy Support Group.

frouke | @frouke | Mar 26 3:53pm

I’m sorry this happened to you, it could have been worse but thankfully you’re doing better, I sometimes worry that I might do something wrong with my meds because I can be very scattered at times, basically stress related and age.

scottbeammeup | @scottbeammeup | Mar 27 7:01am

I'll add that you should check the expiration date on your eye drops as well. Mine burned a bit more than usual and I looked and they were five years past their expiration date. Yikes!

Lisa Lucier, Moderator | @lisalucier | Mar 27 1:07pm

Thanks for the input, @scottbeammeup and @frouke.

Tagging a few members of the Mayo Clinic Connect Allergy & Asthma and Eye Condition support groups who have talked about allergy or related eye drops, such as @larry68 @loriesco @nac1 @joybringer1 @mavoo @covidstinks2023 @linda82 @jackiet @pacathy @SusanEllen66 @equanimous @degarden_girl. I thought you might be interested in my escapade/learning from my mistake with eye drops yesterday.

So you can quickly get to the goofy, but true story I relayed yesterday: https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/why-are-my-allergy-eye-drops-burning-so-badly-today/.

SusanEllen66 Susan McMichael | @SusanEllen66 | 2 days ago

Oh dear, you won’t do that again!

A few months ago I went to use a cleansing wipe
I have for my eyes. They come in a little sealed, green and white packets.
I opened a packet, started wiping my eye when I realized that I was using a hand sanitizer packet. It was also green and white!
Nothing happened, I guess I stopped in time!

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