Chamomile Tea for Eye Infections

As I have mentioned before I am not at all against using western medicines such as antibiotics and the like when they are necessary. And eye infections are one of those cases where I don't hesitate very long to use a antibiotic topical ointment to get rid of the problem quickly. But this last time that my one year old had a eye infection by the time we went to the doctor and picked up the prescription the eye was already 90% cleared up and the only thing we used was Chamomile tea.

So what happened? On Friday my son woke up with a bit more eye gunk then usual and by Friday night it was already bad. Very clear that he had an eye infection. So on Saturday I started to treat the eye with a strong chamomile tea. Now chamomile tea is very gentle, as one can tell even just by the taste of it. So it doesn't irritate the eye.


Very important note some people are allergic to chamomile!! If you don't know if you, your child or a friend is allergic you can check. Make a strong tea with two tea bags or two teaspoons of loose chamomile, add it to a cup of boiling water and let it steep for five minutes. With a cotton ball put a good amount of the tea on the inside of your elbow, where the skin is sensitive (but it's better than in the eye). If no redness or irritation accurse within an hour you should be fine.

Now beside for being gentle it is also a very effective anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial herb.

So how do you treat an eye infection with chamomile?

You prepare a strong tea as explained above and apply it to the eye with a cotton swab or cotton ball. The thing is that you need to do this about twenty times a day for it to be effective. But it is effective by the time we took our soon to the doctor and got his prescription on Sunday afternoon the swelling had gone down and the fluids had stopped draining. But only because my wife was the number one nurse that put the chamomile in his eye every half hour.

Don't let this replace proper medical care, it is always best to see your family doctor.