What happens to the debris that gets into our eyes?!

What happens to the debris that gets into our eyes?

i've had dozens of eyelashes fall into my eye and work themselves under my contacts. usually i am able to dig them out by hand. but what happens to the ones that i don't remove? where do they go?

It depends upon what type of debri you are talking about. Dust and small debri can easily and rapidly be washed out of the eyes with the tears. Larger debri such as your eyelash or maybe a piece of grass that can get entrapped under the lid or under a contact may take a little more time. For these the eye produces mucous. The purpose of the mucous is to encapsulate the debri and by forming a plug of mucous it can more readily be expelled from the eye.

Some types of debri (I recently had a patient come in complaining of persistent irritation when they blinked for several days) may not be able to be easily expelled on its own. In this case, I found half of a plant seed coating securely suctioned onto the under side of the lid. Without my removal it could have very well stayed there for quite some time.

Another type of debri that requires professional removal is metallic projectiles. These can be from grinding on metal, hammering on metal, or can even just fall into the eye from for instance underneath a car being worked on. The foreign bodies tend to stick quite firmly to the cornea and can very rapidly start to rust. The rust from the metallic foreign bodies can penetrate quite deeply into the cornea and actually make the foreign body adhere even more strongly to the cornea. The rust from these foreign bodies can lead to dramatic irritation and pain and if not removed promptly can cause significant problems. Hope this helped.