“It takes ten seconds,” Dr. Kumar said. “And it works 90% of the time.”
By the time Maya was eight, the constant wiping and ointments had worn thin. “I’m a booger-eyed monster,” she told her mom, half-joking, half-crying. how do you unclog a tear duct
The problem was a tiny gatekeeper: the nasolacrimal duct. It’s a passage no bigger than a grain of rice that carries tears from your eye down into your nose (which is why you get a runny nose when you cry). In Maya’s case, a thin membrane at the bottom of the duct had never fully opened. Tears couldn’t drain. They backed up like a sink with a clogged pipe, and bacteria loved that stagnant pool. Hence, the crust. “It takes ten seconds,” Dr
Sarah laughed and hugged her. “You never were.” “I’m a booger-eyed monster,” she told her mom,
She explained three ways to win the war against a stubborn tear duct.
“First,” Dr. Kumar said, “we soften the battlefield.” She showed Maya how to hold a warm, wet washcloth over her eye for five full minutes—long enough to watch a cartoon short. “Then,” she continued, “the Crigler massage. Not that little poke you were doing. This is a rolling motion.” She placed her finger at the inner corner of Maya’s eye, near the nose, and rolled it firmly downward. “You’re creating pressure. Imagine you’re squeezing the last bit of toothpaste out of a tube. You want to pop that membrane open.”
Maya kept the silicone tube story as a badge of honor. And every time she cried—over a scraped knee or a sad movie—she smiled a little, because she could feel her tears going exactly where they belonged: down her nose, and away.