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Articles by Caroline Tobey
It’s That Time of Year Again
With allergy season around the corner, our practices will soon see the return of runny, itchy and swollen eyes en mass. Allergies are not pleasant for anybody, and the irritation only intensifies when you add contact lenses to the equation. It’s no surprise then that most contact lens wearers avoid their lenses and revert to wearing glasses during the allergy season. The good news is that the battle is not over and there is still hope for the contact lens wearers.
The Antimicrobial Evolution
Antimicrobials are an exemplary display of therapeutic evolution. The historical medicine cabinet of antimicrobials has been stocked with increasingly efficacious therapies that have been incredibly powerful and fast acting. However, time has not been a friend to this class of drugs. Co-evolving antibacterial resistance is the main enemy, and the current pipeline of antimicrobial therapies must adapt to respond to this omnipresent threat.
Pre-Surgical Steps for Your Patient
It is inevitable that, at some point, one of your patients may need to undergo surgery. Although you, the practitioner, may not necessarily be the one performing the surgery, it is still your responsibility to appropriately optimize the health of the patient’s ocular surface ahead of time to achieve the best surgical outcomes. This should start with addressing any lingering ocular surface issues.
AK: Let’s Shift the Blame
From fungal keratitis to an update on the 2006 Fusarium outbreak, we have recently covered several infectious diseases. Now, it is time to revisit another past culprit—Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK), a rare and sight-threatening disease caused by free-living protozoans. In 2007, the CDC released several public health warnings regarding an outbreak thought to be associated with the use of Complete MoisturePlus (Abbott Medical Optics) solution.1 AMO voluntarily recalled the product.
The Other Side of the Lens
It’s a time-honored tradition between parent and child: a scrape or a cut that leads to the drying of tears, cleaning of the injury and application of healing medicine. A Band-Aid is the final touch—after all the hard work that has been done to sterilize and treat the injury, the Band-Aid has traditionally been used to hold all of these initial steps together and to protect and allow the tissues to heal.
Treating the Problem: Fungal Keratitis
As we follow up on last month’s column, “Fungal Keratitis: The Lessons Learned,” (November/December 2011, Review of Cornea & Contact Lenses), we realize that it is important to practice what we preach. Fungal keratitis is a condition that cannot and should not be taken lightly—left untreated, the infection may lead to permanent vision loss.
Fungal Keratitis: The Lessons Learned
From 2005 to 2006, Fusarium keratitis gained notoriety when a fungal infection outbreak was associated with a certain contact lens solution.
In the Blink of an Eye
Picture driving down the freeway in your Mercedes Benz S-600 after a long day of treating patients.1 You didn’t get enough sleep last night and you feel fatigue start to set in. Your eyes water, you blink faster, your head starts to nod… Beep, beep, beep! A set of alarms start ringing and you’re jolted back to reality—you almost fell asleep at the wheel. Now, how did your car know this? The answer is simple: blinks.
BAKtracking Contact Lens Guidelines
There has been plenty said about benzalkonium chloride (BAK) over the years—much attention has been paid to the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to the preservative which has led to various misconceptions about its use. However, BAK is still the most commonly used preservative in topical multiuse ophthalmic solutions, found in approximately 72% of eye drops.1 Thus, its reputation as the most effective antimicrobial preservative on the market certainly supersedes its negative reviews.
The Foolish Things Patients Do
They say the eyes are the windows to your soul; the truth is that those windows are quite breakable. The delicate structure of the eye is easily susceptible to damage and one should always take extra measures to protect them. It is no secret that we take our eyes for granted, and far too often than not, a foolish act can get in the way of that protection. While April Fool’s Day—a holiday for tricks and pranks—kicked off this month, accidental incidents of ocular trauma thrive year-round.
Diagnose that Disease: Blepharitis
Blepharitis is one of the most frequently observed conditions among eye care practitioners, yet remains largely misunderstood. The confusion stems from the fact that the ophthalmic community has yet to determine a standard treatment and universal classification system for the disease.
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