EARLY MORNING URINE AND THE EYE!!!

 As Nigerians, I am very sure we have heard that early morning urine cures Apollo, but what we all know as apollo is medically known as conjunctivitis. Conjunctivitis is the inflammation of the conjunctiva, and it can be caused by so many things. Maybe in the next post I will delve into specifics of what can cause conjunctivitis. Some of us reading this post don’t even know what the conjunctiva is or what it looks like, I will try to break it down. You know when a transparent piece of nylon is covering that agege bread that we love so much, remember that we can see the bread clearly through the nylon, but that does not make the nylon insignificant because we have to go through the nylon to eat the bread. So is the conjunctiva, it’s like a transparent nylon covering the ‘white part’ of the eye which is known as the sclera, it also lines the inner layer of the eyelids. Below is a picture that will help you understand. 

   In conjunctivitis, the conjunctiva blood vessels are congested and would be seen as redness. Symptoms of conjunctivitis include itching, discharge, and sometimes blurry vision. Apollo is usually self-limiting meaning that even without treatment it can resolve on its own. For those who thought that their ‘early morning urine’ or the ‘breast milk’ they dropped into the eye cured apollo, let me inform you that it just self-resolved. There are dangers of dropping urine into the eyes, remember that urine is a waste product of our body, you can imagine putting back the waste your body has excreted back into the body, it makes no sense at all. Also during digestion, our body helps to get rid of toxins and these toxins are excreted through our urine you can imagine what these toxins would do to your eyes when you drop urine into your eyes, I don’t even want to think about it. Also, different parts of the body have what we call their normal flora i.e. bacteria that are resident in a part of the body. The normal flora of the urinary tract is different from that of the eye. So when the normal flora of the urinary tract gets to the eye it can cause a secondary infection over the Apollo. It gets worse when you have chlamydia and you don’t even know, transferring that to the eye can cause Chlamydia conjunctivitis, and it is responsible for about 15-20% of the world’s blindness.    

   There are so many more dangers that come with using urine as a medication for Apollo but I will stop here. My advice to you all is that when you notice that there are weird changes in your eyes please visit an optometrist. YOUR SIGHT IS IMPORTANT!!!