Common medical procedures for eye disease include:
- Laser surgery
- Open surgery
- Freezing
Pain relief only, or management of / adjustment to the condition.
The most common treatment however is prescriptive medication. Such synthetic medications provide a superficial and sometimes overpowering treatment and, varying with their category type, all come with many unwanted side effects. Common medications prescribed for eye disease
Corticosteroid Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, or Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs – equivalent to Ibuprofen preparations).
| NB: NSAIDs and steroids can actually cause vision damage, especially if in the form of eye drops, nose drops or inhalants. Anything from dry eyes to glaucoma, cataracts and retinal hemorrhage. They have shown to elevate IOL (intraocular) pressure in the eye in approximately 16% of people, putting them at risk of serious eye deterioration. |
- Antibiotics – for certain bacteria, e.g. Sulfacetamide, Erythromycin, Gentamicin, Tobramycin, Ciprofloxacin, Ofloxacin.
- Immune system suppressants.
- Steroid eye drops.
- Antihistaine decongestant eye drops.
- Antibacterial / Antifungal treatments.
- Glaucoma medications – Beta blockers (Tomfool, Metipranolol); Alpha agonists (Brimonidine, Iopidine); Prostaglandin analogues (Latanoprost); Adenergic agonists (Epinephrine, Dipivefrin).
- Antivirals – Triflurthymidine, Adenine arabinoside and Idoxuridine.
- Anti-allergy medications – Livostin, Patanol, Cromolyn, Alomide, Pheniramine.
Side effects
Medications of this nature may have many potential side effects, some even contradictory to their alleged action.
Typical side effects include:
- Eye drops can cause ocular side effects such as redness, stinging, blurred vision, sensitivity to light and constriction of the pupils, as well as headaches, or even systemic effects such as stomach cramps, diarrhea and sweating.
- Anti-inflammatory medications, corticosteroids may cause cataracts, glaucoma and other eye infections.
- Decongestant drops (Visine, Murine plus) can cause a type of acute glaucoma.
- Anaesthetic drops can cause severe damage to the cornea.
Beta-blockers (Timoptic, Betagan, Betoptic) may cause severe adverse reactions, such as slowing of heart rate, asthma attacks, drop in blood pressure, loss of memory and loss of sex drive in some cases.
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