| |
For contact wearers, a word to the wise
Sallyann Davis was sitting on her couch last September watching Monday Night Football when a phenomenal pain gripped her left eye.
After a sleepless night the Baltimore account manager visited her eye doctor, who recognized a corneal problem and referred Davis to Dr. Gerami Seitzman, a cornea expert at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore.
Seitzman cultured Davis' lenses, her lens case and her eye, all of which screamed fusarium keratitis, a rare fungal infection that in months since has broken out across the United States and Asia, mostly among contact-lens wearers. As of April 27 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had received 228 reports of possible infection in the United States.
"I've had two children without anesthesia, and this pain was so unbelievable I wanted to rip my eye out of my head," said Davis, whose ordeal left her with a scarred left cornea and damaged eyesight in both eyes. The fungus later affected her right eye.
Surprisingly, she may have been one of the lucky ones. At least one patient has lost an eye to the serious ailment, which can also cause blindness.
Many of the sufferers -- including Davis -- used Bausch & Lomb ReNu with MoistureLoc contact-lens solution, although a causal link between the solution and the infection has not been made. The CDC is currently investigating that possibility. Bausch & Lomb has temporarily recalled the product, and their Web site urges consumers to purchase other Bausch & Lomb eye-care products.
In the meantime, the more than 30 million contact-lens wearers in the United States should not panic, eye doctors say.
"When you put it in the context of real world risk, you stand a much greater risk of being killed in an automobile accident than developing fusarium keratitis," Arthur B. Epstein, chair of the American Optometric Association's Contact Lens and Cornea Section, told UPI.
Instead, the outbreak should serve as a reminder for those who view contacts as just another consumer product, like shampoo or soap.
"Contact lenses are medical devices," Epstein said. "People tend to forget just because they are mass-produced they don't require a lot of care."
In 1987, when disposable lenses first became available, a lens dropped on an office floor would send employees crawling on hands and knees to find it, Epstein said. But over time, as they became cheaper and more available, lenses became trivialized, as did the care associated with them.
"Contact lenses are wonderful, but they need to be used properly," said Seitzman of Sinai Hospital. "People get so used to them, they forget they wouldn't put something dirty anywhere else on their body."
Basic contact-lens hygiene means washing your hands before touching lenses, using new solution every night and throwing away the case every six months.
Consumers should also be wary of some marketing claims -- such as "no-rub" solutions -- that may not disinfect their lenses enough.
Seitzman also advises people not to sleep in contacts, despite the prevalence of extended-wear brands that encourage the behavior.
Studies have shown sleeping in contacts could greatly increase risk for another type of keratitis infection, microbial keratitis.
These risks are why Cory M. Lessner, president and medical director of Millennium Eye Laser Centers in Sunrise, Fla., advocates laser vision correction -- a set of technologies in which a laser reshapes the cornea.
"Whenever people talk about laser vision correction, they say, 'Oh no, what about the danger.' But I tell them people are sleeping in extended-wear lenses, putting them 18 times more at risk for corneal ulcers," Lessner said.
The one-time procedure leaves more than 50 percent of patients with vision sharper than they had with contacts or eyeglasses, Lessner added.
Both Epstein and Seitzman emphasize that overall, contact lenses are still the safest bet for vision correction. Contacts have the longest safety track record of any eye technology, Epstein said, and they also are invaluable for people suffering from disorders such as keratakonis, which makes the cornea thin over time.
As for Davis, who's banned from contacts for life, it's still unclear whether her damaged eyesight will someday be restored.
"I'll just have to wait and see," she said.
If you are a contact lens wearer and you experience pain, blurry vision that doesn't clear, unusual discharge or coloration in the eye, Epstein advises you visit your eye doctor immediately.
Back to Articles
| |
|
|
|
