Tonicity

Man it is amazing to look back and see where "a train of thought" can take you. As I was mowing today, I had sweat get into my eyes. It stung, but why did it sting? My thoughts on this and other ocular related problems from today are tonights topics.

Where to begin? Earlier today, before I mowed, I was messing around on the computer when I heard Abbie. Generally when she cries for something I can tell her fake cry from her angry or "I am serious" cry. This was something different all together (and everyone says "This was something different.") This was a high pitched cry of "Uh-oh, what is happening?" I run in and find her in our bathroom. She has a tube of cream in her hands, cream on her hands and face and cream smeared on the floor. I must interject that Abbie likes to get tubes of cream and rub it on her face, pretend and for real. This time was for real, but the unfortunate thing was that this was not body or face cream, it was a sore muscle rub equivalent to Ben Gay. So Abbie was getting a new sensation from her cream. The problem was that she had it all over her hands. Every time I hurriedly tried to get it out of her eyes she would stick her fingers right back to her eyes. After trying to flush her face with water in the bathroom, I ran her into the kitchen and used the spray nozzle on the sink to hose her eyes as much as she would let me. It was a sight to say the least. Once we both we hosed off, I noticed she had also dropped a huge load in her shorts. So she was drenched in cold water, her eyes burning, skin tingling like never before, smelling like a spearmint life saver, and loaded up with a poopy pull-up. After we got her cleaned up, she was shivering uncontrollably. Amber bundled her up and rocked her for a while and Abbie fell asleep. I was freaked out. I was afraid she still had something in her eyes and she would wake up blind. So while she was sleeping, I went out to mow. As I was mowing, thoughts of Abbie's eyes were running through my head. Then some sweat got in my eyes and I started to think about what it is in sweat that stings your eyes. Is it a tonicity issue, or is it the components of the sweat or is it both?
Tonicity is basically a term for how much stuff is floating around in your eye. If you put a liquid in your eye that has more stuff floating around in it than what your eye has, the water in your eye will push out of the eye into the liquid. Generally, this is not something you want to do because your eye will let you know about it if you know what I mean. There is an eye drop on the market that actually does this. I think the percent of solution that is in the eye is about 0.9%, and the eye drop (Muro-128) is 5%. So if you have swelling in the cornea, put Muro in there and it pulls fluid out. But, I have been told that it will sting a tad, too.
Kind of strange stuff to be thinking about while mowing, huh? Anyway, I got the yard mowed and when Abbie woke up, she was her usual happy self. Her eyes looked just fine. I was very relieved. I am afraid our bathroom is going to smell like a spearmint life saver for a long time, though.