Jelly on eye - irritated and red?

Question

I woke up this morning (1 hour ago) and my eye was really itchy. I started itching it, and when I finally looked in the mirror I found it was all red and had sort of a jelly-like growth on it. I tried to take pictures but it's not showing up properly, and it's hard to describe but I'll try.

It's almost like the area that was exposed when I have my eye open normally swelled up. It's just to the right side of my right eye, and it's not covering the iris, although it's fairly close to it. I can still see, vision is perfect and the growth isn't growing at all, so I'm not that worried. Every so often my eye tears - I guess because it's irritated? I removed a sort of white gooey thing - like the eye boogers that sometimes people get when they first wake up - and it seemed to get slightly better.

Anyone know what this could possibly be? I googled it but nothing really describes what is happening. It's not really a problem, it just feels uncomfortable and I'm kind of concerned in that I don't know what it is. I'm thinking pink eye, but I've had pink eye before and it never looked like this.

Any help anyone can provide would be great - thank you!

Answer 1

Hmm, I would have suggested conjuctivities (pink eye).  It could just be a worse case than you've had in the past, because it does sound really similar to cases of pink eye that I have seen.

Otherwise, I supposed you could have gotten something in it that caused irritation.  Did you go to bed last night with make up on your eyes?

I would call your family doctor and explain over the phone what's going on and see if they want to phone something in for you or have you come in.  In the meantime, to be safe, I would just assume it is pink eye and act accordingly so as not to risk anyone else in the house getting it.