Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

As a public service announcement to my fellow cyclists, today I suffered a corneal abrasion. I did an 18 mile commute this morning into a moderate headwind but otherwise uneventful. I wear eyeglasses and had no problems with anything blowing into my eyes.

About one half hour after arriving at work, and just sitting quietly at a meeting, my eye felt like it had a particle in it. I saw no foreign material in the eyelid, nor did anyone else, and it was not relieved at an eyewash station. I was lucky enough to get an appointment with an eye specialist at about an hour after the onset, and he did identify some black particles, and diagnosed the abrasion. From an online medical textbook:...

My eye doctor claimed 24 to 48 hours to recovery, and my colleague (female), who asked me if I poked myself with an eyeliner wand, claimed she has gotten better overnight.

I wasn't able to work today as it was difficult even to just keep the uninvolved eye open because that irritated the affected eye. The eye doctor didn't think a patch would be useful, though I used an improvised one for a while until I realized it was probably further abrading the cornea.

I was given an antibiotic ointment and I've spent most of my day with my eyes closed. I took Alleve for the pain, and have some heavy-duty analgesics available if I need them to sleep tonight. Pain management to get over the initial phase is discussed in that article.

It's now about 15 hours after the onset of symptoms. I note improvement, and only now can keep my unaffected eye open long enough to work at the computer. I'm pretty nearsighted, and unfortunately the better eye is the involved one. The prognosis of quick improvement has been an encouraging thought to get over this. So that's what I learned about corneal abrasions, FYI.