It’s a question as old as time: can you get pink eye from farting on a pillow? The short answer is no, but the long answer might surprise you.
The term “pink eye” or conjunctivitis refers to an inflammation of the outermost layer of your eyeball and the tissue around it. It’s not typically serious but maybe contagious depending on the specific type of conjunctivitis, so it’s important to know what causes this problem.
Conjunctivitis
Conjunctivitis can be caused by allergies, foreign bodies in the eye that are irritating the tissue, infections throughout the body that have spread to involve your eyes, direct contact with infected bodily fluids or chemical irritants, etc. Farting isn’t even on the list of possible causes!
Can farting give you pink eye? No, but if we’re going to get scientific about it, then we might as well address what could happen when a person who is infected with anal and/or fecal matter farts (and there’s always someone like that). If they didn’t wash their hands or use hand sanitizer after using the bathroom or changing diapers, and they touch their face soon afterward, then any bacteria they were carrying around in their anus can easily make its way to their eyes.
So technically speaking, it is possible for a person who doesn’t practice good hygiene to indirectly cause conjunctivitis by touching the affected area without washing their hands first. Farting, on the other hand, is not even remotely possible.
I’m sure there are people who swear that they got pink eye from farting on a pillow or sitting on someone’s face, but it’s impossible for this to happen! The only way you could get pink eye would be if feces directly contacted your eyes. If you were shaking hands with someone who didn’t wash their hands before handling food and then touched your face mere seconds later without washing their own hands first, then yes, that would be how you got pink eye. It can also spread through contact lenses that haven’t been disinfected properly.
What should you do?
Washing your hands after using the bathroom and avoiding sharing personal items as pillows goes a long way toward preventing an eye infection. If you want to be extra safe, you can also use antibacterial hand sanitizer instead of soap and water.
The bottom line is that the only time either farting or sitting on someone’s face would give you conjunctivitis would be if the individual who was farting/sitting had an anal/fecal/diaper bacteria on their hands after leaving the bathroom and then directly touched your eyes within seconds of doing so. This is extremely unlikely because they probably wouldn’t even have made it back to wherever they were sitting before making touch with someone else or something else!
But don’t take my word for it; go ahead and do your own research! I promise you that you’ll find this information to be accurate.
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Conjunctivitis, also known as pink eye, is an inflammation of the conjunctiva, the thin layer of tissue that lines the inner surface of the eyelids and covers part of the eyeball in humans and other vertebrates. This results in characteristic red-eye in which the whites are reddened, but there is usually no discomfort. Conjunctivitis can be caused by allergies (either seasonal or perennial), infection (bacterial, viral, or fungal), foreign bodies, chemical irritants (including household cleaners), immune disorders, or physical irritation. If the pink eye is associated with a cold or flu, it may be contagious to others if hand contact occurs or through contact lenses. Conjunctivitis is highly contagious.
The infection can be transmitted by fingers, clothing, towels, used kleenexes, etc., so immediate handwashing after coming in contact with infected individuals is advisable. Conjunctivitis is not usually serious; however, some forms of conjunctivitis are more serious and require medical treatment (such as ulcers that can cause scarring of the cornea) while others do not (like viral conjunctivitis). It is named for the pink appearance of the inner eyelid; an eyeball will normally appear bluish-white when looking at
