I honestly believe in this life that experience is a good teacher, and that any one can become an expert about any given subject given the right experience.

Take me for example. 

Overnight, I have become an expert on
hot-searing-blazing-eye-ball-chilli-pain. 

The pain of getting chilli in your eyes and contact lenses truly is the gift that keeps on giving.  So despite being rather foolish at times, I am at heart a kindly old stick, so here I shall share my new found knowledge of the subject to help others. 

Basic tips:

• Do not take your contact lenses out after cooking with chilli
• Do not put the same contact lenses in the next day believing that soaking in saline solution will have rid them of traces of chilli.  It won’t have.

Of course – this is exactly what I did…

How to prevent getting chilli burn:

Since being in eye ball agony, I have done quite a bit of reading (through the tears) on how I could have avoided this mishap.  Here is the advice I gleaned

1. Wear plastic gloves when chopping and handling chilli
2. Remove chilli from hands by washing them in olive oil or milk (apparently chilli disolves in fat)
3. If you get chilli on your hands don’t touch your eyes or other sensitive body parts

Of course, I didn’t do any of this…

And if you do get chilli burn: 

You can ease the chilli pain by

1. Washing the affected area in milk or other fats like cream or buttermilk
2. Washing the affected area in lemon juice or vinegar (apparently chilli burn is an alkaline burn, so neutralise with acid)

Please note that I didn’t actually do this with my eyes – despite the pain I couldn’t quite bring myself to put lemons in my eyes as well – I simply lay on my back on my bed pouring saline solution in until they cleared.  It hurt and there were tears but it helped eventually.

On the plus side, the chilli I made for dinner last night was delicious.