How have you been advised to taper steroid drops post cataract surgery?
Posted , 6 users are following.
I had my first eye done two days ago and have been improving over the two days so I am happy. I have antibiotic drops 4 times daily for one week. BUT I'm a little worried about my steroid drops: 4 times daily for FIVE WEEKS and then stop.
I always thought you had to taper steroids so wondering what you guys "post surgery" have been advised.
Regards
Mary
0 likes, 15 replies
phyllis31515 mary67362
Posted
Hello Mary,
My original instruction sheet said antibiotic drops 3 times a day for 2 weeks and steroid drops twice a day for 4 weeks. At my 2 week post op appointment my doctor said I could reduce the steroid drops to once a day for the remaining 2 weeks. i have 3 days left and I will be finished with my eye drops.
Phyllis
Brighton_girl mary67362
Posted
I had to reduce by 1 drop each week so that by the end of 4 weeks, I had finished the drops. Maybe check with the doctor?
Sue.An mary67362
Posted
Hi Mary - my drops schedule was similar to yours. Steriod pills need to be tapered but creams and eye drops do not. you can always ask your pharmacist for their opinion but I know I had to take steriod drops for 5 weeks just like that.
mary67362 Sue.An
Posted
Thanks for telling me drops are not same problem as pills.
Sue.An mary67362
Posted
Interesting side note - my surgeon at consult noticed my ezcema and said there is a correlation to steriod creams I was using to cataracts. He felt it was possibly a reason why I got cataracts at a young age and why they also developped rapidly to point of needing surgery within the year of diagnosis. I recall going on predisone pills too 17 years ago for a short time - those had to be tapered ever so slowly.
Wish you successful outcome! Let us know how it goes.
steve09278 mary67362
Posted
Antibiotic 1x day
Steroid 4x day
Another drop 2x day
All for the 1st week. Antibiotics ceased for 2nd week and the other drops went to 3x and 1x for the following week. 3rd week 2x and 1x and finally it was one drop (steroid) once a day for the 4th week.
rick03247 mary67362
Posted
Hi Mary. I had antibiotic and steroid drops for 4 weeks and then stopped them both with no complications at all. I had both eyes done 6 months apart and drops were the same for both eyes and completely fine when stopping the drops.
mary67362 rick03247
Posted
Great Rick
I had written my reply before I saw yours. Now that's 2 people the same as me and no problems, so that's a relief.
By the way in what country do you live?
rick03247 mary67362
Posted
Hi Mary i live in England, United Kingdom. So Mary where you from as i see there is a lot of people from America who reply on here? I had my surgery done at Midland Eye the best in the country and true to say i have had no problems whatsoever. I was told the surgery was a 98% success and for me vision is amazing. A few halos but got used to that and does not bother me any more. How was your surgery, and have you noticed any difference in your vision, i know your still taking drops but i noticed the difference in my sight more or less straight away.
mary67362 rick03247
Posted
I live in Galway, Ireland and I am 65. Had my right eye done last Monday with no complications. My left eye is scheduled for Monday next. I downloaded and printed the Snellan chart, so I could get an idea of how I was improving. My cataract was of a moderate size and my eye was a regular shape and length, he informed me.
On Tuesday I could see as well as I had just before the operation, which was the third line =20/70 vision. But by Wednesday I could see the fourth line = 20/50 and Thursday a little bit better (I could read most of line 5 with difficulty. Today (Friday) is the same as yesterday. I presume it will improve in the coming days, because the opthamologist said he was giving me distance Monofocals Plano, so I can use glasses for reading, which I don't mind. +17.0D in right eye and +17.5D in the other eye.
What I do hope is that I can see into the distance without glasses. I still couldn't read the road signs in the distance today and that was what alerted me to my bad eye sight originally. I know I can correct that with spectacles, but I hope it won't be necessary.
Unlike the opthamologists in America and Canada, the opthamologists here (I have asked my friends who have had catarcts removed) do not give great information to their patients. To be fair, I too, thought it was a simple procedure like getting a new pair of prescription glasses until my sister had hers done. My sister has no idea what he gave her (distance or near) but one eye needs correcting for both distance and reading. My neighbours are the same, they just left it to the opthamologist to decide. I choose a different opthamologist to my sister, but there may have been some problem with my sister's eye. He definitely said that he had to scrape the very dense cataract in her eye - she was almost blind with it, She got +23D in one eye and +22.5D in the other.
Both opthamologists are very highly regarded in both private and public practice and my neighbours were all satisfied with both of them. Only my sister had a problem, so I became paranoid and began looking at this forum.
Anyway it made me decide to get mine out as quickly as possible, so self-referred to the opthamologist, saw him and measured for IOL and operated one month later.
I'm lucky that I have no pain or discomfort and my hubby kindly instills the drops for me.
Did you go for distance or did you get the multifocal IOLs?
I just wondered about tapering the steroid drops. My sister got Maxitrol from her opthamologist, which has 2 types of antibiotics plus a steroid in the one drop. She had to use one drop four times daily, but only for 14 days in total and no tapering. Obviously different consultants favour different protocols, in the same hospital.
I'm taking antibiotic drops for 5 days so will finish on Saturday and then the steroids continue for a further 4 weeks more.
mary67362
Posted
Thanks all you guys. I see only one of you is the same as me and didn't taper. . My second eye is scheduled for surgery next Monday but I won't see the opthamologist at all. I'm asleep before he comes near me and he's doing next patient when I wake up in the ward afterwards. I live in Ireland and this was a private hospital, believe it or not.
Last Monday I requested a visit from him so he did come to see me. I wanted to know if it went well and he said it was a regular operation and all went well. I felt like I was wasting his time so won't do that next week.
Don't know when he will call me for post-operative check-up to his private rooms. I hope it's before the steroid drops are finished and I can voice my worries.
Sue.An mary67362
Posted
good luck Mary!
Different protocol I guess for different countries. I live in Canada and was awake for surgeries. We see surgeon 24 hours post op and again at 6 weeks.
rick03247 mary67362
Posted
Hi Mary just read this after posting my message to you. I see your from Ireland and i had my surgery awake both times. Painless and took about 20 mins both times.
seeherenow49806 mary67362
Posted
Hi Mary:)
I just had surgery on my 2nd eye Monday. At my next day post op visit, I found out that the scheudling assistant had accidentally given me an old instruction sheet re the eye drops. It had different acceptable brands and had tapering for the steroid drops.
When the post op doctor was checking my regimen, she noticed the error and double checked with the surgeon. He came in to the room and said that in the past they used to taper the steroid drops but found that only patients with a history of eye inflammation seemed to need to taper them.
The post op doc said that this large network had multiple cataract surgeons and about 27 different brands and types of drops, which each surgeon prescribed according to their experience. So I'm not gonna worry about it.:)
mary67362 seeherenow49806
Posted
Thanks for taking the time to tell me about what you discovered about tapering. Yes, I'm more relaxed about it now.
I had no issues whatsoever with my first eye and the second eye only gave me a slight discomfort with sticky eye on first day.I had the second eye done last Monday. I was so glad my sister had experienced mucous/sticky eye on her eyelids after surgery, so she gave me her opthamologist's tip for cleaning it.
I realised on evening of surgery that I, too, had mucous on my eyelid, which made opening my eye tricky. I put a warm, wet facecloth on my eye (dipped in previously boiled water) and gently cleaned eyelashes with moist cotton wool balls. I haven't experienced any more mucous since.
Good luck to us all!