The EYE MAGNET story:
I have been a metal fabricator, car and motorcycle enthusiast, and a self proclaimed construction worker for the past 23 years. In the last 23 years I have experienced metal fragments in my eye on many occasions. People always say I should wear safety glasses. I do, all day long. But as we all know these small metal fragments have a way of getting around safety glasses and into your eye.
I have had the wind of a drill motor throw chips upward under my glasses and into my eye. I have taken my shirt off at home and a metal chip fell off the cloth of my shirt and into my eye. Banging on a rusty exhaust system while on my back under my car was another incident. Using self tapping sheet metal screws (overhead of course) while doing some steel stud framing. These are all specific times I remember. But the real culprit is just plain old grinding. A 4" angle grinder finishing welds. That single operation has sent me to the eye doctor more times than I would like to remember.
I have been to the eye doctor so many times that I had to come up with a solution. If you have ever experienced metal shaving in your eye you know how bad it hurts. It seems to get worse and worse as time goes by. You try to wash it out. A cue tip swipe under your eyelid (OUCH). A rolled up wet tissue poke at it. You just keep going back to the mirror trying to see whats in there that could hurt so bad. Then you finally go to bed hoping it will work its way out and you will wake up in the morning pain free. I have had that happen once.
The problem is that your eye tissue is very soft and sticky. It is like the surface of a hardboiled egg. When a tiny sharp piece of metal touches the surface it sticks like glue. You cannot effectively wipe it off the surface. The other problem is it immediately starts to rust in the salty saline in your eye. This makes it corrode to your eye. The eye doctor has used two things (along with a microscope) to take metal off my eye. The sharpest pointiest pair of tweezers you have ever seen and a dermal drill. They pulled it off the surface like a splinter in your hand. And twice they ground it off the surface with the dermal drill.
The longer the metal stays on your eye the more it rusts. This rust ring permanently stains your eye and can hurt even if the metal is gone. That is why they like to grind it off. The great thing about the Eye Magnet is that you can use it immediately after the accident. That way the metal has no time to form a rust ring. I keep it in my toolbox. If I have even the slightest idea that something went into my eye. I go to my toolbox and use my Eye Magnet. 90% of the time I do end up getting something out. These metal fragments are very small but they hurt. You can see the flecks of metal on the white disposable magnet covers. After I get the metal out of my eye I run the magnet across my eyebrows and eye lids. You will be amazed at the amount of metal particles that come off there. That is all stuff that can potentially fall into your eye.
People always think the metal is under their eye lid. It sure feels that way. But the reality is that every time I had the metal extracted by a doctor it was on the pupil and colored area of my eye. I could have sworn it was under my eye lid but it wasn't. That's why the Eye Magnet easily pulls it off the surface of your eye.
The Idea came about as I was pacing around my house in the middle of the night in tears because my eye hurt so bad. I had gotten something in my eye at work and couldn't get it out. I came home and tried all my tricks but couldn't get it out. But I couldn't bare the pain of closing my eyes. I walked by one of my sons rooms and saw a magnet on a metal bulletin board. I thought, " shove that in your eye and maybe the magnetic force will pull it off." I tried it and it didn't work. It was one of those round black magnets. It just wasn't powerful enough. So I found 4 more of them and stacked them up. And that seems to do it. The pain was instantly subsiding. I knew I had got it off. The next morning I felt pretty good. I went to the eye doctor because I had made the appointment the day before and he could not see me until the next day. He verified my thoughts. The metal was gone. But unfortunately it had formed a good size rust ring during the 8 hours it sat there. So out came the dermal drill to grind the rust ring off.
So I had a solution to future accidents but I needed a smaller and more powerful magnet. That is how this product came about. I made a few prototypes and design changes and now are producing them and offering them for sale.