board77

Tears, milk and saliva contain an enzyme called Lactoperoxidase that has antimicrobial properties.

I've had several incidents over the years where I get a scratch on an eyelid that gets infected and can literally take months to heal. This happened earlier this week again, and on a whim I rubbed some yawn tears on it. It stung, but I repeated the process at least once a day, and now- 3 days later- it's completely healed up. So, I started looking online for relevant info and found out about the lactoperoxidase.

It makes sense, really. Fluids secreted to the outside of the body really ought to have some microbial defense to them-- and they do!

That's cool!

I knew saliva had those properties. That's part of the reason animals lick their wounds. Very cool to hear about tears, though! It's like Harry Potter.

So tears can heal the soul and the body. cool.

What are yawn tears?

Not sure I'm getting how they heal. If you collect them and pour them on cuts or bruises, it helps?

To be honest, I've just liked the feel of my own tears the last couple years. They're warm and comforting. Plus it's a physical release and all that jibba jabba. I feel better afterwords. Like with vomiting! Tad more poetic, though.




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Is that why a lanky northerner licked my face earlier...??

Was he from Colorado?






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Yawn tears are ones that come out of your eyes when you yawn.

It doesn't happen to me, maybe I'm not yawning hard enough.




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*E*V*E*N*S*T*A*R* wrote:

Like with vomiting! Tad more poetic, though.

But less colorful.

Unless you're a dichromat.

Or love oreo ice cream. Like me!




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By the way, the healing of the tears didn't last.

A few days after that post, the eyelid flared up again and no matter how many tears I smeared on it, it stayed inflamed. I tried other things, too, to no avail. It's just now clearing up, now that I've instituted a no touch rule for that eyelid. I don't touch it unless I'm washing it, and that seems to be doing the trick.

St00pfid eyelid!

I didn't think it had been this long, though. I looked up this thread to see when the condition started and it's been almost a full three months. I don't think it ever was an infection- just an over reaction to abrasion.

Crying also balances ones Serotonin levels!

What made you look up this thread? I'm curious!

The eyelid condition has lasted until last week, 7 months. I eventually identified the condition as eczema and started trying things that are supposed to help eczema.

A salve with calendula in it didn't help my eyelids, but did help sore "hot" spots on my dogs- so that was good to know.

Taking extra zinc didn't help.

Dropping wheat from my diet didn't help the eyelids, but did cure all my tummy problems!

In response to the depressing fact of *not* eating gluten containing products any more, I'd been eating a lot of chocolate candy for the past couple of months. My eyelids got worse and worse. Finally, at the beginning of last week they started oozing fluid and getting terribly itchy. I'd read that chocolate could cause eczema flare-ups, and my consumption rate for the few days prior could only be catagorized as binging. So, I decided to quit chocolate and see what happened.

Six days later, my eyelids were completely clear. I made a chocolate cake for my daughter's birthday yesterday, and after the cake was iced, I used some of the icing on my gluten-free but Oh So Dry cookies so I could have something sweet too. There were a few chocolate cake crumbs in the icing, but I didn't think that would be enough to matter.

Yesterday evening my eyelid started itching again. This morning I had a crusty, sore line in the eyelid crease. It really is chocolate causing the problem. This is terrible news for a chocoholic!

Well, it's nice to know what was causing the eyelid problem, but you know what I mean. I have to relegate all cocoa containing food items into the inedible catagory. I guess I've used up my lifetime chocolate allowance.

I can't believe it took me this long to figure this out. I suppose if it had been a visible problem, I might have been a bit more motivated to find a cure sooner- but since the irritated part of the eyelid was deep in the crease, people didn't really see it unless I closed my eyes.

My eyelids are chocolate level indicators, and have just been recalibrated to show micro levels.

I was just scanning thread topics and stopped on this to share the only interesting factoid I know on crying. As for chocolate, what is it in it that causes the flare ups? The crap u buy in the stores is full of well, crap! There is a place down town that makes all organic natural blissfully fantasical chocolate. It basically cocoa and mabey a little guava or hemp. Not even any milk! Its is sooooo good and you can eat all u want and not get fat! *squee*

I think it's probably the cocoa that's causing the flare-ups. I suppose I could experiment with homemade chocolate things (got lots of great recipes) but I'm enjoying having normal, non-itchy eyelids at the moment. It's been so long.

If I get the symptoms again without ingesting cocoa, I'll have to reevaluate. But for now, I'm blaming cocoa. I've managed to hypersensitize myself to it, I think.

*pats u consolingly on the back* one day, all will be free to eat chocolate.