Milky Eyes

Been meaning to share this story for a week or so, but just hadn’t found the time.  Two Thursdays ago, after too many nights in a row of staying up late researching some very interesting stuff, I noticed that my left eye was feeling funny a bit before midnight.  And sure enough, when I headed up to bed not too much later and looked in the mirror as I washed my face, there was the pink and the goop.  Ugh.  Great.

But never fear!  I knew what to do.  If you know me well, you know that I am no movie buff (except for the Lord of the Rings movies).  But even I know the joke from My Big Fat Greek Wedding about “put some Windex on it!”

No, I did not put Windex in my eye.  I’m not sure if I even have any Windex in my house anymore at this point.  But my solution lends itself to a similarly funny sounding quote: Put some breast milk on it!

I’ll never forget when my friend Sarah, from Real Food Outlaws, first told me about this wonderful trick.  One of my munchkins had pink eye, and I had either just picked up or was about to pick up the Vigamox prescription the doc had called in for me.  She said, “Just put some breast milk in his eye.”

Really?  That works?  Yup!  I put mama milk in his eye, and it cleared up within 24 hours.  I think I gave him a few more doses just to make sure the infection was gone, but it was so much better than the ‘conventional’ alternative.  No need to prolong the trauma of dosing eye drops out 3x a day for 5 days to a cowering, crying toddler (eye drops are no fun at any age).

So, back to me a week or so ago.  I put some breast milk in my eye, went to bed, and the pink and goop were both gone by morning.  When the virus decided to try and set up shop in my husband and younger daughter’s eyes instead over the next few days – same thing.  A few doses of mama milk and no more pink eye.

Then the baby had a touch of an ear infection.  Couple drops of mama milk in the ear a few times a day for a couple days – all better.  No need to wipe out all the good bacteria in his gut with an antibiotic just to knock out something festering in his ear.  🙂

And here is an even better testimony to the amazing power of breast milk.  Last week, my older son somehow scratched his cornea.  He just randomly started crying and crying about his eye hurting.  So, we called his eye doctor to make sure it couldn’t be some sort of post surgery problem.  It had been over two months though since his strabismus surgery, so we couldn’t imagine that was it.

Anyways.  Took him in, the doc checked his eye, noted the scratched cornea, gave us a prescription for an antibiotic eye drop to prevent infection while it healed (I had another idea), said it would take 2-3 days to feel better and maybe a week to heal.  He also patched the eye and said to bring him back the next day to remove the patch and check it out.  When we got home, it wasn’t long before the bub wanted the patch off his eye, so we took it off, and I gave him his ‘special’ eye drops.  😉

The next day, the doc said my son’s eye was almost completely healed already.  Yay!  Go mama milk!  Somewhere I think I saw a bumper stick that says, “I make breast milk.  What’s your super power?”  Love it.

Then just today, a friend shared this really super thorough post on 57 uses of breast milk by Dionna over at Code Name Mama.

Check it out!

http://codenamemama.com/2012/02/20/medicinal-cosmetic-alternative-uses-breastmilk/

So, next time you have any sort of problem, maybe “Just put some breast milk on it!” (to be read with a Greek accent – and not to be taken as medical advice.  Anecdotal only.  I’m not a doctor.  If in doubt when caring for yourself or family, ask a doctor.).

Don’t have your own supply?  Find a healthy nursing mama you trust – she’d probably be happy to share.  🙂