Friendly Warning About Hand Sanitizer

It seems that hand sanitizer has only been around for a short time, but now it is EVERYWHERE! Especially after the swine flu epidemic. I try not to use it very often on Liam, but I do put it on his hands after we have been somewhere public. This past Saturday, I took Liam to the park. It was busier than usual, and there were some older kids there, and they were climing on top of the playgroud structure, above where the other kids walked to climb up to the slides. I was concerned that they could fall on top of Liam, so I tried to get Liam to go to another slide area at the park, but he would have none of it....so I took him back to the car, and was going to see if I could find another park nearby on my phone. Liam had been upset and crying, and I had a difficult time getting him into the car. I was flustered and upset with those older kids ruining our fun, so when I put the hand sanitizer on Liam's hands I was not paying close attention to him...I am guessing that the sanitizer was not fully dry, and because he was crying he must have rubbed it into his eye. He complained of his eye hurting, and it only got worse, and he cried for at least an hour. We thought of rinsing his eye out, but we didn't think he would cooperate with us...although hindsight we wish we would at least tried! He seemed to be OK after about an hour or so, but the following day, his eye was really puffy. I called the after hour clinic, and they said to just keep an eye on it, as long as it isn't infected, he should be OK. Then on Monday, it didn't look any better, it actually seemed worse! So I made an appointment with the Dr. He basically said the same thing as the nurse the previous day. Finally, Tuesday afternoon, it started to look better! Needless to say, I will be SUPER careful using this stuff for now on, and probably will stick with wipes for a while! In fact, after explaining what happened to Liam's teacher, his school is reconsidering the whole sanitizer stuff at the school...Here is a picture of Liam's eye, it was taken 2 days after he got it in his eye....poor guy!