The tear channel (duct) probing is a sort of eye surgery in which the doctor tries to heal the blocked tear duct (nasolacrimal blockage). To explain more, our tears flow from our eyes to the top and bottom punctum. Punctums are the tiny holes in our eyelids which are placed near the nose. After that our tears move inside the tearing sac. At the end tears reach the tear channel and then flow through the nose.

When does the blocked tear duct happen?

When your tearing channel gets blocked, your tears would not flow properly. So you would experience a watery eye. The blocked tear duct usually happens to babies. This problem might be solved within a year after the birth of child with no treatment or procedure. There are some reasons for the appearing of tear duct obstruction in an adult such as eye infection, tumor or maybe a damage. One tip that you must notice is that in most cases the nasolacrimal obstruction can be treated. The method depends on the patient condition (like age) and the reason of obstruction.

Blocked tear duct probing surgery would be done in the operating room. If the patient is a child older than age 1, one of their parents can accompany him till he falls asleep. Your child would not feel anything during the surgery including pain, because he is asleep in effect of anesthesia.

You may also ask that, how the surgery procedure is done. During the surgery the surgeon would use a small and tardy wire made of metal, to cautiously put it into the tearing sac hole and through the tear channel. In some cases, the eye doctor might inject sterile salt water into the tear channel to assure if it is open.

Symptoms of tear duct blockage

There are some symptoms of nasolacrimal duct obstruction which can lead to probing eye surgery. They are mentioned below:

• Too much tearing
• Patient may have eye redness
• The patient might experience eye infection with inflammation for several times
• In some cases eye swelling may happen (close to the eye corner)
• You may have crusting in your eyelids
• If you have a tear duct blockage, a kind of mucus might flow out of your eye lid and eye’s surface
• You may experience blurry vision

What are the possible complications and risks of blocked tear duct surgery?

Every surgery has its own risks, and tear duct probing surgery is not an exception. After the surgery you will meet the eye doctor and he would give you some instructions and medications. The patient should not have pain feeling after the surgery. But it’s possible to feel tired specially the children. Your baby might be niggling too after the operation. There are some other complications of tear duct probing such as nausea or vomiting. After the probing surgery you may notice that your tear and your nose discharge are mixed with blood. Bleeding after surgery can be normal but you must consider it with your doctor. Re-obstruction of the tear duct can seldom occur after the surgery. As we mentioned before infection is one of the possible risks.