A corneal abrasion is a scratch or scrape on the surface of your cornea.
Fingernails, makeup brushes, and tree branches are common culprits of corneal abrasions. Some other causes of corneal abrasion are rubbing your eye and having very dry eyes.
The cornea has many nerve cells. Cells called pain receptors transmit pain to tell us about possible damage to the eye’s surface. In fact, there are hundreds of times more pain receptors in our cornea than there are in our skin.
Your ophthalmologist will put dye called fluorescein on your eye’s surface. Then they will look at your cornea with an instrument called a slit lamp. The dye will highlight a cut or scratch on the cornea.
Your ophthalmologist will treat your eye based on what they find in the exam. Following are some options:
If your corneal abrasion is small, it probably will heal in 1–2 days. A larger corneal abrasion may take about a week to heal.
