The Hairy Eyeball

Lately, I've been having this problem with scratchiness in my eye. It's not dryness. It's not itchiness. It feels like something is stuck in it, but no matter what I do, I can't get it out! Rubbing it accomplishes nothing (I know I'm not supposed to do that anyway). Blinking just makes it worse. Dousing it with eyedrops doesn't help. I'm simply forced to deal with it, blinking uncomfortably and tossing my head around like I can maybe shake the irritant loose, for hours or days until it finally, miraculously, goes away.

I thought this was just another one of those weird malfunctions of my body, like eczema, an extreme reaction to an imagined slight (or maybe my mascara, though it never seemed to coincide with the relatively infrequent times I wore makeup). I put up with the phenomenon for months, getting annoyed every time it recurred, but figuring it was just the latest in a lifelong string of weird but minor health problems that can't be treated.

Then one day, during a particularly irritating bout of scratchy eye, I went in the bathroom and got up close and personal with my eyeball, pulling back the lids and scrutinizing the sclera for any signs of injury. I didn't see anything...until...there! The tiniest...something...that didn't look like it was part of my eye. It vanished when I blinked, and then it appeared again. I poked it with my finger, brushed sideways, pulled outward, and I had it!

It unraveled from my eye like a skein of thread. It was kinky and fine as silk, almost invisible but most definitely not imagined.

It was a dog hair. One of those tiny, twisty undercoat hairs that adhere to every soft surface in our house and refuse to come off again. This time, the surface it adhered to was my eyeball.

So you know what I'm talking about, here's an example hair,
which, fortunately, has never been stuck in my eye.

One more medical mystery, solved!

Since that moment, I've had two more cases of scratchy eye that have been successfully cured by close examination and subsequent removal of a dog hair.

If I had one of those automatic fur removers that hasn't been invented yet, it would sure save me a lot of literal tears. But at least I'm glad to know that there's a cause and a solution to one of the most infuriating maladies to affect me in recent history. And fellow dog owners, if you ever experience a scratchy eye for no apparent reason, perhaps you should look not to yourself for the cause, but to your pet!