Sick or not sick?

I need to get some advice here. One of my daycare kids showed up today and his mom said he has puss coming out of his eyes but other than that nothing wrong, nothing contagious. And I looked at his eyes, there's nothing wrong that I can see. I was immediately worried he had pink eye, but I can't see any signs other than goop.

Is there anything else that could be going on that I can't see? Or is it just normal for some kids to get goopy eyes sometimes? When this child was younger I noticed an unusual amount of goop when we would be outside in the cold, but it seemed to stop as he got older.

I've had 2 kids with pink eye (one before Xmas and one just a week or 2 ago) and hfm disease is at the school my husband works at right now. Not sure if hfm has eye issues though but thought I'd let you know! (Were in the same small city for those that don't know lol)

I have a child right now who has had gunk in her eyes for 2-3 months now. It's just in one eye and the doctor told them she had a clogged tear duct. We were supposed to rub her eye in the corner down to her nose. If it didn't fix itself she was to have surgery. It hasn't cleared up so she will be getting the surgery done. Could it be something like that?

I hope it's a clogged duct. Its really yucky right now.

My daughter would get infected tear ducts all the time as a baby, around age two they stopped. They would just spring up, and she would have a goopy eye, and then just as quickly go away.

That sounds similar to this. Except he's recently turned three. It's been a while since I've seen him like this. But now I can relax a little that it's nothing really bad.

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Originally Posted by superfun

I need to get some advice here. One of my daycare kids showed up today and his mom said he has puss coming out of his eyes but other than that nothing wrong, nothing contagious. And I looked at his eyes, there's nothing wrong that I can see. I was immediately worried he had pink eye, but I can't see any signs other than goop.

Is there anything else that could be going on that I can't see? Or is it just normal for some kids to get goopy eyes sometimes? When this child was younger I noticed an unusual amount of goop when we would be outside in the cold, but it seemed to stop as he got older.

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Could be, would be, might be - But is it?

I don't work based on medical opinions of non-medical people. If I think a day care kid might be contagious, I turn them away. It's the parents responsibility to confirm their child isn't contagious vs my responsibility to prove they are or consider all the potential other causes.

I have no medical training other than the CPR/First Aid certificate and I'm not qualified enough to take chances with potential infectious diseases but nor are most parents.

If a kid has goopy eyes, sure it could be a blocked tear duct or some other harmless condition or it could be pink eye. Until I have been told differently by a qualified source, I'm not risking pink eye in the house as that's a realistic potential cause.