With so much focus on Olympic newscaster Bob Costas’ pink eye situation, Harris Health System’s Dr. Reza Farahani, optometrist, Acres Home Health Center, explains what pink eye is and how to care for it.

What is Pink Eye?
Pink eye is the common terminology for conjunctivitis, which is inflammation of the conjunctiva – the linking that covers the white part of the eye and inside of the eyelids.

Symptoms
The symptoms and signs are itchiness, burning, along with redness of the eye tissue and eyelids, swelling of the eyelids, clear or whitish/yellowish discharge and sometimes pain or sensitivity to light.

Cause
The most common causes of pink eye are viral, bacterial, toxic and allergic. The majority of cases of pink eye are caused by the same adenovirus that can give patients respiratory infections.

Bacterial cases are more serious in nature and may be a result of contamination from different strains of…