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" Love bites, but I didn&amp;#039;t know it scratched, too. I recently parted ways with the dude I was dating and there were some serious tears involved. And with those tears I found myself rubbing my eyes. A lot. Post-cry, I was left with puffy, red eyes\u2014not cute, but to be expected\u2014but after a day or two passed, I noticed that my left eye was still red, teary, and felt like there was a small pebble or speck of dust inside of it. A closer look revealed a tiny white, hazy dot on my cornea near the outer corner of my iris. I knew something was up, so I made an eye appointment ASAP. When I got to the optometrist&amp;#039;s office, he checked out my eye and diagnosed me with a corneal ulcer. Um, excuse me? WTF is that?! Dr. Panos Karageorgiou, O.D., an optometrist at Visionary Optics in NYC, explained that the tiny tear in my corneal epithelium, the outermost layer covering of your cornea, was due to me rubbing my eyes aggressively or getting something in my eye that nicked my cornea\u2014since I don&amp;#039;t wear contacts, which is a common cause of corneal ulcers. Then, apparently the bacteria, which we all have in our eyes, got into the small cut and caused an infection. He also told me that the tiny abrasion on my cornea is what&amp;#039;s causing the scratchy feeling, and that some patients could experience minimal symptoms to severe pain\u2014but it varies from person to person. However, one warning sign that everyone has if you have a corneal ulcer is the white dot that appears to be over the colored part of your eye. Good to know. After Dr. Karageorgiou walked me through my diagnosis, it sounded less serious. But then he went on to say that if I didn&amp;#039;t treat it aggressively, my vision in that eye could be seriously impaired. OMG, what?! Obviously I was ready to comply with whatever regimen he was about to prescribe\u2014which ended up consisting of Vigamox eye drops on the hour, every hour for a few days and Erythromycin eye ointment in my left eye at night until the tear heals\u2014but this made parting with my partner that much worse. Basically, the moral of this story is that breakups suck any way you slice them, and you&amp;#039;re going to cry. Just remember to take easy on your eyes because they&amp;#039;re delicate and no guy is worth losing your eyesight over.  Photo: thinkstockphoto Follow Carly Cardellino on Facebook and Twitter. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/beauty/how-to/a12727/how-I-was-almost-blinded-by-love/>