Hi Jaimz
Glad you're doing so well, you're being braver than I was at any rate. Was really glad when the "gunk" phase ended, shouldn't be too many more days now.
But your post reminded me of something that I wish I'd spotted sooner and come up with a better regime from the get-go. The gunk-cleaning requirements reduce and go away over time, but the day-to-day cleaning of the normal "sleep dust" and other detritus needed, in my experience, a bit more care and attention post-graft. Whereas before, soap and water was fine, followed by drying off with the typical hand towel, however I erred on the side caution post-graft and didn't want to risk infection for the first month or two by using my normal face cleaning routine. But what do you do instead ?
The hospital staff probably used -- while you were in -- an eye bath plus some small dressings to clean the eye. Hopefully they were as generous as the nursing team in the private hospital I was in and gave you a post-procedure eye care "kit" with a bath and some dressings to get you started. If not, I'd recommend you pop down to Boots or somewhere and get a plastic eye bath (actually, any not too big plastic dish will do) and some small individually wrapped sterile dressings. If you only use sterile liquid in the bath/dish, keeping it scrupulously clean, and a new dressing each time you need to clean your eye, then there's pretty much zero risk of any infection acquisition from those.
The boiled water is fine for the cleaning liquid, but what I ended up doing was just bulk-buying some bottles of saline. The advantage of this approach is that you've always got a completely hygienic cleaning medium on-tap, as it were. If you're better organised than I am and can plan things in advance then the boiled water option is certainly a bit cheaper. The only snag is, you do need to think a bit ahead and it's best to use it as soon as it's cooled (leaving it for hours on end will risk it getting some contaminants in it). Conversely, a bottle of saline in the cupboard can simply be picked up and used then and there. Supermarket "own brand" saline is a couple of quid a bottle, so even if you buy, say, four bottles (several weeks supply) it should be under a tenner.
My personal preference is the expensive stuff (why do I have Rolls Royce tastes but a Hyundai budget ??!!) which is Bausch and Lomb "sensitive eyes" saline. It's usually priced up at about four quid a bottle but Boots appear to be selling it for 25% off at the time of writing. It seems to be being repackaged at the moment, some bottles look like this:
http://www.bausch.co.uk/en_UK/consumer/ ... eplus.aspx but others have the same product description with slightly different packaging. Anyhow, try a few brands maybe and see if you notice any difference. The Bausch and Lomb stuff is noticeably "gentler" as far as I'm concerned, so for once more money might indicate a better developed product and not just some marketing rubbish.
I should say at this point that I'm the world's biggest fretter about post graft eye hygiene and probably was far more cautious than really necessary so as long as you follow what the hospital staff told you, you'll be fine. But it's fantastic to get your eye really clean and in my experience stops at a stroke any temptation to "poke" the corner of your eye with your finger to get grits, dust, dirt or grease out. Not getting into an "itch-scratch-itch" (or, maybe more accurately, an "irritation-poke-irritation" cycle) is the best thing for your eye in my opinion so anything which nips a niggly irritant in the bud is worth doing.
Best wishes, good luck, do keep us posted if you can.
Kind regards
Chris
I was just given a bag with drops and cream. Then told I could leave. I was also told not to get normal tap water in my eye. I only knew about the boiled water because I Googled post graft care before the op. My usual face cleaning routine is to wash it in the shower but at the moment I am using the boiled water to un-gunk and clean around my eye and using the wife's face wipes for the rest of my face.