Raised pressure in eye after eye drops
Posted , 4 users are following.
My wife had an eye test at the optician yesterday. They photographed the eye and checked the pressure before putting drops in. The drops going into the left eye stung more than in the right. After her tests with no change in her sight from last year they checked the pressure again and said that the pressure in the left one was still high and asked her to wait for fifteen minutes and have it checked again. If it didn't they said that she would need to go to the eye clinic at the hospital.
It was still high and they asked her to wait another fifteen minutes. By then it had come down to their satisfaction but they said that if she had any eye pain later or today to go to the eye clinic.
Is this a common happening after eye drops? She says that there is no pain but her eyes 'feel tired'
0 likes, 5 replies
mrsmop derek76
Posted
derek76 mrsmop
Posted
mrsmop derek76
Posted
Sometimes they say things which worry people unnecessarily.
derek76 mrsmop
Posted
cookie39 derek76
Posted
derek76--
I recently reviewed a Korean study from 2012 that indicated that normal people tested with a dialating agent of 1% tropicmide and 2.5% phenylephrine had up to 10% increase in their occular pressure. The link is as follows:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23017184
It is my understanding that the tropicamide is a muscle relaxant and possibly changes the shape of the eye slightly. For me my vision becomes blured because the distance changes slightly between my lense and the retina.
The phenylephrine acts like a decongestant to extract intersticial fluid and can also cause dialation by itself by causing the muscles that control the iris to open the iris without the tropicamide. It seems in my case not to cause blured vision however, suggesting there is little if no dimensional change between the lens and the relina. The phenylephrine at 2.5% may incease my pluse rate and blood pressure. Two recent eye examinations were adequately accomplished without dialation.
These unusual examinations--no dialation--were associated with a slight bleeding in the macula at the fundus of my right eye. The bleeding was noticed after dialation with tropicmide and phenylephrine in an exam in December 2016. The bleeding affected my ability to read with my right--dominant--eye. Before the dialation my eye sight was normal with no reading disability.
My left eye became dominant shortly after the bleeding episode. However, my right eye is trying to regain dominance as the retinal healing progresses. Healing--eliminatiom of the blood and swelling--has been slow at what I estimate to be about 5% per week. My eye is at about 90% recovered per my estimate based on the remaining distoration in my central (reading) field of view along a horizintal line of text immediately to the right of my focal point during reading. The ending of this trama is in sight, so to speak.
For medical eye professionals to "DO NO HARM" is not so simple a process any more with procedural standards based on statistics, vice evaluation of individual characteristics and conditions. This issue seems to me to be particularly important to recognize with respect to the growing elderly population with unique characteristics and conditions, which, if not adequately assessed, can occasion harmfull results from "gold standard" diagnostic medical procedures and tratment.
Regards.
Bob Cook