This article presents the use of the Morgan Lens using text and photographs, as well as providing general information on chemical eye burns. The introduction to the article is presented below:
“YOU’RE WORKING in the emergency department and receive a call from the lab: A technologist in the chemistry department has splashed acetic acid solution in her right eye and is on her way down. You quickly grab your eye emergency equipment.
When someone gets a chemical in her eye, you can help prevent damage to the cornea by irrigating the eye and restoring its normal pH. You could do this by prying open her eyelids and administering a flush solution through intravenous (IV) tubing, but this technique calls for constant attention and the use of both hands. Fortunately, you have another option.
In this article, I’ll review how to use the Morgan Lens, a molded plastic device that fits over the eye and through which you can flush irrigating solution. When properly placed, the Morgan lens rests between the cornea and the eyelid and solution instilled through the attached tubing irrigates both surfaces. Continuously bathed with fluid, the cornea remains untouched by the lens itself.”
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-Once I had an exposure while give a patient a medication through a saline lock. The syringe backed out slightly and when I gave the med a little push it sprayed into my eyes. It burned, so I immediately flushed my eyes. A co-worker instilled a Morgan lens to each eye and ran sterile N.S. and I felt immediate relief.
-A local trauma surgeon and avid woodworker complained of irritation to his eye for several days. The eye was obviously irritated. After being examined by an emergency department doctor for a foreign body, and finding none, we irrigated the eye using the Morgan Lens. The surgeon found the lens to be comfortable, and after irrigation the eye felt better. Two days later his eye was better without redness or irritation.
-An employee of the hospital where I work had a car battery explode in his face. An eye irrigation was set up and initiated with the Morgan Lens. He felt much better and commented on the soothing feeling of the sterile saline irrigation.
Registered Nurse (California)
The Morgan Lens is used in 90% of hospital emergency departments in the USA and can be inserted in less than 20 seconds. There simply is no other "hands-free" method of eye irrigation. Nothing else frees medical personnel to treat other injuries or to transport the patient while irrigation is underway. Nothing is more effective at treating ocular chemical, thermal, and actinic burns or removing non-embedded foreign bodies, even when the patient's eyes are closed tightly. Its design makes it simple and straightforward to use so minimal training is required.