How Do You Unclog A Tear Duct Jun 2026

Every morning, seven-year-old Maya woke up with her left eye glued shut. Not by sleep, but by a thick, golden crust that made her look like a tiny pirate who had forgotten her patch. Her mother, Sarah, would gently wipe it away with a warm, damp cloth, murmuring, “There, there, little one.”

The problem was a tiny gatekeeper: the nasolacrimal duct. It’s a passage no bigger than a grain of rice that carries tears from your eye down into your nose (which is why you get a runny nose when you cry). In Maya’s case, a thin membrane at the bottom of the duct had never fully opened. Tears couldn’t drain. They backed up like a sink with a clogged pipe, and bacteria loved that stagnant pool. Hence, the crust. how do you unclog a tear duct