A strand of trouble

A 30-year-old male presented with complaints of foreign body sensation, pain, watering, and redness in the left eye for 1 day. An anterior segment examination revealed sectoral congestion in the nasal bulbar conjunctiva as shown in Fig. 1a. Closer inspection Fig. 1b showed a hair (previously trimmed by the patient himself) lodged in the upper punctum, which was easily removed using epilation forceps Fig. 2. The patient was prescribed topical antibiotics and lubricating eye drops.Figure 1: (a) Nasal bulbar congestion. (b) A hair shaft lodged in the upper punctum highlighted with a yellow circleFigure 2: The hair shaft removed with an epilation forcepsDiscussion Hair in the punctum is a rare occurrence. Shed eyelashes or scalp hair may be carried by reflex lacrimal secretions and drawn into the punctum due to the negative pressure created within the canaliculus during blinking. The barbs along the surface of the hair shaft can prevent it from being expelled from the punctum.1 This leads to a vicious cycle of redness, pain, and watering due to persistent microtrauma caused during blinking.2 Authors contributions Acquisition of data and manuscript writing - Chhavi Gupta; Concept and design - Anureet Kaur; Supervision and critical revision - Sima Das. Declaration of patient consent The authors certify that they have obtained all appropriate patient consent forms. In the form, the patient(s) has/have given his/her/their consent for his/her/their images and other clinical information to be reported in the journal. The patients understand that their names and initials will not be published and due efforts will be made to conceal their identity, but anonymity cannot be guaranteed. Financial support and sponsorship: Nil. Conflicts of interest: There are no conflicts of interest.