How do you wash an eye properly? Do you use soap and flush it with water or do you just flush it with water, or should you not even do that? Should you use saline? I realize these might sound like low-level questions, but these are the things that people deal with on an all-too-frequent basis.

For most people, most of the time, actually, the eyes are a very good, clean environment. Actually our tears contain enzymes that help break down bacteria and bacterial toxins. For most people, regular eye-washing doesn't have to be any part of their standard routine. In terms of the surface of the eye, the part of your eye, the conjunctiva, over the whites of the eyes, underneath the eyelids, anything underneath the eyelids, it's pretty self-cleaning, and actually our tear production and blinking is very good at keeping our eyes clean.

The eyelids, eyelashes, can be another story, and especially as we age, our skin is breaking down a little differently than when we were younger. You can develop what we sort of nickname "scurf," which is little dead skin bits that accumulate around the eyelashes. A lot of people develop what we call blepharitis, which just means inflammation of the eyelashes.

For that, doing some eye scrubs is a good idea. They actually sell little pads that you can buy that you rip open and you can use to lightly clean the eyelashes. You can also just use like a No More Tears Baby Shampoo. Just pump a little bit into the palm of your hand once or twice a day, dilute it with a little water and under the sink, and either with your finger or an edge of a washcloth, just very lightly rub the eyelashes.

What I like to do- With the eyes closed. With the eyes closed, and don't scrunch them closed too tight because you're actually burying the eyelashes, the roots of the eyelashes when you really scrunch closed. Just gently close your eyes, just real gentle closure, and then just lightly scrub. It shouldn't be abrasive.

You're not trying to exfoliate the eyelids or eyelashes in any way. Just lightly rub with that kind of dilute No More Tears Baby Shampoo, and that can really help people with their eye comfort. If you feel like you've got something in your eye, your ideal eye wash is actually going to be a sterile saline solution, a saltwater solution that they sell little bottles over the counter, eye wash solutions like that.

A lot of people who wear contacts will have that kind of eye wash solution, just a sterile saline eye wash. Just pure saltwater. It doesn't have to have any other chemicals or preservatives in it. You can, of course, use- Not actual seawater or saltwater. Not saltwater, thank you. Not saltwater out of your salt pool, not saltwater out of the ocean, but like a saline saltwater that's available in a sterile.

Now you can also just use artificial teardrops and some of those come in non-preservative, some of those come in preserved versions. Those are all also completely safe to use in the eye. And there you can sort of spritz into your eye, hold the lid open and give it a little spritz.

If you feel like you've got something in your eye, a piece of dirt or a lash that's not coming out, just to rinse it. But having a regular routine, you're not going to hurt anything with the occasional eye rubbing. We all do these things just kind of as a, even a nervous habit or just absentmindedly, you might scratch your arm or rub your eyes or things like that.

That's fine. You're not going to hurt anything. There are conditions where people sort of develop kind of almost like a psychological habit. There are certain conditions where people actually do too much eye rubbing. It can be dangerous if you're in that group. But for the regular run of the mill, everyday, occasional eye rubbing, fine.

If you certainly, if you get a lash in there and you're trying to rub it and blink it and tear it out. And again, in that situation you can use some artificial tears, wetting drops, saline drops. Those would be the way to do it.