A lot of it comes down to cleanliness:
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Wash your hands often with soap and warm water, especially before eating.
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Keep your eyes clean. Wash any discharge from your eyes several times a day using a fresh cotton ball or paper towel. Afterward, discard the cotton ball or paper towel and wash your hands with soap and warm water.
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Wash or change your pillowcase every day until the infection goes away. Clean your bed linens, pillowcases, and towels in hot water and detergent when you do the laundry. Keep your towels, washcloths, and pillows separate from those of others, or use paper towels.
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Don’t touch or rub your infected eye with your fingers. Use tissues to wipe.
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While treating pink eye, don’t wear -- and never share -- eye makeup, eye drops, or contact lenses. Wear glasses until your eye heals. Throw away disposable lenses, or be sure to clean extended-wear lenses and all eyewear cases.
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Use a warm compress, such as a washcloth soaked in warm water. Put it on your eye for a few minutes, three to four times a day. This will ease your pain and help break up some of the crust that may form on your eyelashes.
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Don’t put a patch over your eye. It may worsen the infection.
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Protect your eyes from dirt and other things that irritate them.
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Limit eye drops. Don’t use them for more than a few days unless your eye doctor tells you to. Nonprescription “artificial tears,” a type of eye drops, may help ease itching and burning from the irritants causing your pink eye. But you shouldn’t use other types of eye drops because they may irritate the eyes, including those promoted to treat eye redness. Don’t use the same bottle of drops for an uninfected eye.
