Glaucoma sufferers

[Patsy74]

Beware of using prescribed eye drops which contain PRESERVATIVES !!

Unfortunately I have inadvertently been using eye drops for my glaucoma which although prescribed by an ophthalmologist and subsequent eye hospital I should not have been prescribed as I have an intolerance to BAK preservative. It has SLOWLY been numbing all my senses and building up in my system so that now I suffer from long bouts of misty vision. Having now gone onto a preservative FREE preparation I am just living in hope that my sight is not permanently damaged. I had already lost nearly half the sight in one eye by the time it was diagnosed despite going to an optician EVERY YEAR since 2006 for a sight test. If you suffer from glaucoma do be aware of the dangers of using eye drops with preservatives in especially if, like me, you are intolerant to additives. They may be silently poisoning your system without you realising it. As an example I had lost my sense of taste and with it my appetite together with loss of smell and suffering bouts of confusion. Within 48 hours of changing the eye drops both these senses began returning and now 5 weeks later I am now enjoying food again. There are other examples of how it SLOWLY affected me over a three and a half year span but this is just a short summary to warn others if they too have any such symptoms and are using Latanaprost and dorzolamide to control their glaucoma. Beware of the preservative Benzaklonium chloride. It will be written in the accompanying notes with your eye drops

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK]

For simple dry eyes I used "ordinary" hypromellose drops - and to begin with they were fine. After only weeks to months of use, I found it worse to use them than not. Even those who, like me, could tolerate them to begin with, often find themselves becoming intolerant.

It is so widely documented, it is terrible that people are allowed to suffer from the preservative. You just need to know to look - and why would you even think of it?

[Silver_Fairy]

I was lucky, my Ophthalmologist advised me that if I used eye drops more than 4 times a day I should use a preservative free one.