Blocked Tear Ducts What to Do?

My sons had this as well. My second son, now 13 months, had it til he was about 6 months old I want to say. I did just the warm washcloth to clear and massage his eyes a bit. And it did eventually clear on it's own, even though it had started out with being really a lot of gunk around his eye. Best wishes to you all!

My daughter had the same issues. We used to massage the tear ducts often and still she had the goop at her eyes. At about 6 -7 months it finally cleared up. Our doctor also told us that we may need to see an eye specialist, but we did not have to. I did speak to several pediatrician friends as well at the time and they told me that this was pretty common and that I shouldn't worry - that it looks bad, but it doesn't hurt or bother the baby.

I hope this helps. Hang in there.

A natureopathic physician told me to seep black tea bags in hot water, wait for them to cool and then place them on your child's eye. You need to do this 3x a day for a couple days. It worked for me!

C.

Hi there,

My youngest daughter who is now almost 3 had the same problem with tear ducts. Yes, all I did was massage near the inner part of her eye....(after washing hands) a few times a day. It took a couple months for it to clear up and the dr told me the same thing. I think ours cleared up by 5 months. Hope this helps!

Hi there - I have a 4 week old and he has a blocked tear duct. He had the goopy eye for a couple of days and I called the dr. He saw us and gave us some drops to use and said to massage the corner of the eye. He did say that it should correct itself in a few months - and if not we'd have to have it openned up by an eye doctor. His eye doesn't get as nasty w/the drops, but it is still blocked (the drops are just a symptom fix) - so, hopefully both of our childrens eyes will be cleared up soon. My pediatrician did say that only 1% of children w/this have to go to the eye dr. Good luck - I am sure it will go well for you.

I know you've already gotten lots of advice, but my daughter had a blocked duct. I did warm compresses every morning and massaged her tear ducts with every diaper change (BEFORE not after so my hands were clean). My peds said that the accepted standard of care is that if the issue does not resolve by 12 months then she can open the duct surgically. She stated they used to do the procedure earlier (my mother told me I had it done when I was a baby) but the research shows most blocked ducts resolve by 1 year.

E., my daughter had blocked ducts too. I was told to massage them, but to no avail. But what I WASN'T told by my first pediatrician, is that the unblocking procedure is really only effective before age 18-24 months. After that, the ducts are fairly formed, and you have to surgically insert drainage stints. My daughter had the unblocking procedure, which didn't work, and now we're looking at the surgery...so just don't let it go too long.

S.

Hi E., had same the problem :) My mom told me to put little bit brest milk on his eye and massage it. Guess what it works:)

My baby had it in both eyes. Her cousin had it too. Her cousin had surgery at 6 months and I figured that I would wait it out. I am glad I did! My daughter's eyes cleared up at 8 months. Literally, overnight! One day goopy with everyone and their mother sticking their fingers into her eyes, the next day CLEAR! I am glad I did not have the surgery. Good Luck!

My son had the same problem. All I could do was to massage the tear duct (quite a feat on an infant!) until it cleared up. My husband, my mother-in-law and I did that daily for about 5 months - and then it just went away. He literally wole up one day and it was fine. I know my doctor did tell me that if it hadn't cleared up by 6 months, they would refer my son to an eye doctor to make sure there was nothing wrong. But the doctor didn't seem concerned. She was right since it DID clear up on it's own within the 6 month time frame she gave me. Don't worry - your daughter's eye will likely clear up on it's own.

My daughter had blocked tear ducts. There are 2 things that seemed to work for me.

1. If you are breastfeeding, you can put a few drops of breastmilk in each eye 2-3 times a day. The doctor that told me to do this prefers less invasive measures as a first course of action (and also has 4 kids of her own - 1 who had blocked tear ducts). This really started to help clear up the problem.

2. A final step for us was to get some antibiotic eye medicine (it's in a small tube and is a clear gel). We got the medicine from the doctor and it really helped solve the problem. By 6 months, the problem was cleared up.

Our doctor told us that we should not do any invasive procedures until our daughter was one year old, if needed. So, the surgical procedure would have been an option, but only as a final step after 1 year.

Good luck and I hope that your daughter's eyes clear up soon.

Hi my name is A. and i know what your talking about. my daughter was liek that when she was little i just took a warm wash cloth and rubbed around her eyes with it to remove the yuckies and i did it everyday even if nothing was there just to try to keep it from happening eventually it just stopped and no problems since and my daughter is now four years old.
i hope that maybe this is helpful

My niece had this problem too as a baby. (She is now 13. It was done as a outpatient procedure to open her tear ducts and I think the worry associated with it was harder than what was actually done. Her eyes cleared up and everything has been fine since then. If you have any certain questions about the procedure, let me know. I can ask my sister. I would find a really good eye doc who does things like this all the time. Good luck!

Try using a warm moist compress... I often found wiping my kids' eyes with a warm damp washcloth (from inside corner to outside only) helped, too. I feel your pain. My kids each went through an infant phase where I almost didn't want to take them out of the house because their eyes were just so sticky with goop and requiring so much maintenance... and frankly looking gross! It'll get better though... even if you do end up needing to see a specialist in the end. Good luck!

My son had that in 1 eye and the Dr said it should clear up on its own by a year. He was right... i think it got bette around 9 or 10 months. : )

I know how you feel! My daughter had 2 blocked tear ducts as well. Her eyes were always goopy, and her 6 month photos look like she has pinkeye!

My pediatrician also told me to massage her eyes, which I did to no avail for several months. When I did go take her to the eye doctor, he told me I was not massaging them the right way. Rather than pinching the bridge of her nose, as the pediatrician showed me, I needed to take my index finger, with a trimmed nail, and basically jab it into the corner of her eye, then drag it down along the side of her nose. He told me to do this in sets of 3, 15 to 20 times a day. I felt like I must be hurting her, and she did grow to hate it, but one eye cleared up completely. The other one was better and then worse in cycles, and he said if she was still blocked by the time she hit 15 months, he'll have to do a minor surgery to unblock it. We go in for that checkup next week.

So it may be worth your time to see an eye doctor, just to make sure you are massaging correctly. Other than that, just keep it up, and hopefully it clears up by the time she's one year old. Good luck!

Hi E.,
Been in exactly the same situation. At four days old we had my son back at the doctor's office for the eye goop as we used to call it. They prescribed vigamox, which seemed to clear it up. We went thru this about five more times before he was three months old. The doctor refered us to Dr Carol Osterly at the Wheaton Eye Clinic. (she is WONDERFUL). She took one look at him and told us that he had blocked tear ducts in both eyes. She suggested to massage them at every opportunity and put a warm wash cloth on them to help draw out the stuff. She said to keep massaging them and the majority of the time that they would open on their own. She said that if we still had the drainage at 9 months to bring him back. His did not open and at a little over nine months old he had surgery at CDH to open them (covered under medical insurance). They are perfect now. It was hard, I totally know how you feel, made him look sad and sick all of the time and people always assumed that he had pink eye or something. For nine months I constantly walked around with a baby wipe or a tissue in hand to wipe his eyes (he hated it)Hang in there, the massaging does really help them open, have had two neighbors with the same issue and both of their daughters opened and did not require surgery. good luck.

K.

My son too had this problem. Our pediatrician gave us some antibiotic eye medicine. We got the medicine from the doctor and it really helped solve the problem. By 6 months, the problem was cleared up. We were also told to massage the inside part of the eye closest to the nose daily to help open up the tear ducts. The pediatrician said this is very common but if it didn't seem to get better by age 1 then a surgery would need to be done. My son's went away after 6 months after massaging and using the ointment that was given to us.

My daughter had blocked tear ducts. The right eye opened up at 13 months and the left eye we had to have opened by an eye doctor. We just had the surgery done on 11/21 and it has been great since. If you live in the northwest burbs I can send you the doctor's name...she was great and works with several local hospital's.

Our doctor had us use a warm cloth to wipe Viv's eye's 2-3 times a day and to massage the inside corner of the eye after cleaning.

So you know, we had some gross days and some days it was not so bad or not even there.

Good luck,

J.

My son had this too, some days it would really be oozing and other days it wouldn't... It was so gross! Anyways, my doctor told me massage a few times a day with a warm washcloth and it should help get things flowing again. It should clear up by itself by a year, my son's was gone around 5 months.

My daughter had a clogged tear duct, we waited until she was a little over 6 months old to see if it would resolve itself, it didn't. She had surgery at about 7 months. Everything went fine, not complications and she is perfectly fine now. So if it doesn't resolve itself I wouldnt' worry about it. The surgery is outpatient and relatively easy.

Blocked tear ducts are very common in infants... unless it causes something (like in my case, my daughter when she was born had a clogged tear duct, but it was hanging in her nasal path so she was having trouble breathing)so they had to probe it...

normally they just keep an eye on it and it clears itself...

You should use warm compresses on the eye and massage... do it while you are feeding her and try to do it 3 times a day.. if you need a good doctor... there is a great doctor in Hinsdale.. I am not sure where you live...

She was great... if it conserns you, you should go get it checked out by an eye doctor for children...it is very common though.. but it would make you feel better... normally if it doesn't clear up, around 9 months they will probe it or do something...

I hope this helps.

Not sure if this is the same situation, but my daughter who is now 6 months old had a lot of mucus in her eyes for 4 to 5 months. It was so bad that when I would feed her at night, her eyes lashes were stuck together. Her doctor told me that it was because her tear ducts were still a bit small for her face. That as she got bigger they would open up and the problem would go away. If after the age of 1 they did not improve then she would have to go to the eye doctor. Well like I said before, she is now 6 months old and the problem just went away. I would just clean her eyes with some warm water. Older family members also told me to some drops of breastmilk in her eyes and that it would clear up. I would not worry to much about it, I know that it is hard not to worry when you see your child like that, but I would give it a few more months before I got to worried about it. Hope that this helped and that she improves quickly. Good Luck!

My daughter had it and I would put warm washclothes on it and religously massaged it. They also gave me eye drops to use when the color got to look bad. She was fine after 4 months old!

http://www.drgreene.com/21_1035.html

I know others may have mentioned this too but spraying breastmilk always works - give it a few days and it'll be GONE.