Having conjunctivitis that look like allergic conjunctivitis?

A question about viral conjunctivitis?

• I just went to the eye doctor and she said I have viral conjunctivitis that was caused by the cold that I'm just getting over. She told me that I can't give the conjunctivitis to anyone else, I may give them my cold and they could get it that way, but the conjunctivitis isn't contagious. However, I looked around online and it seems it's quite contagious. Can someone help me clarify? Maybe the certain type of conjunctivitis I have isn't contagious? Also, do I have have to throw away the eye makeup (liner,mascara,shadow) that I've been using?

• Answer:

  With a cold, the conjunctivitis could be a reaction to effects of the virus, and maybe the virus isn't actually on the surface of the eye? I don't know if this is true or not but its the only thing that makes sense to me. With a viral infection, you don't need to throw away any of your eye make up, but you probably don't want to share it with anyone in case your doc is wrong about it being contagious. You can't re-infect yourself with the same virus once you have already had it. The same thing is not true for bacterial infections.