<p>My 17 year old son went to an ophthalmologist on a semi-emergent basis without me because I was out of state. (The white of one of his eyes got extremely red for no apparent reason.) Our regular ophthalmologist was not available. My son was prescribed Lotemax for some sort of infection and told to use it for two weeks. He wears contact lenses and didn’t realize that he should ask the doctor if he could continue to wear his lenses while using this medication. </p>
<p>I did a lot of reading on the 'net, and found two different answers. 1) He should wait 15 minutes after putting the drops in before he puts in his contacts, and 2) He should not wear contacts at all until he is finished using the medicine in two weeks.</p>
<p>I also read that if you are on this medication for 10 days or more that you need to have your interocular eye pressure checked, which seems pretty scary to me.</p>
<p>If there is an ophthalmologist in the house ;), can you explain why he would need to use this medication for so long and venture an opinion as to whether he can use his contacts.</p>
<p>The eye pressure check is done externally and painless. They shoot a small puff of air at the eye and maeasure it. No biggie. Some new machines do it without using the puff.
With little lost not wearing contacts I’d let the stuff run its course with glasses.</p>
<p>Call the doctor in the morning and ask about wearing the contacts. In our experience, the rule of thumb was to wear glasses until the infection clears up. Also, you need to consider the fact that his contacts are becoming contaminated when they are worn in an eye with an infection. Thus, he could be re-contaminating his eye if he puts the same pair back in.</p>
<p>It’s best for you to call the doctor and follow up on the original appointment. Find out what the actual diagnosis is regarding the infection. If he has a corneal infection, it needs to be monitored closely.</p>
<p>I am by no means a doctor or an authority-just a mom with a son who has been wearing contacts since the age of 9.</p>
<p>nysmile, I did call the doctor’s office this morning and the receptionist talked to the technician who talked to the doctor who talked to the technician who talked to me… well, you get it. I have a suspicion that if our regular ophthalmologist had been in the office, I could have had a direct conversation with the doctor and would understand how stringent these requirements truly are.</p>
<p>I have asked all your questions to an eye doctor “in the house” :)</p>
<p>About the glasses/contacts…ideally, it is best to not wear the contacts while taking the medication. However, it is not a big problem to wait 15 min. after the medication goes in but then ONLY use daily lenses that are the kind you throw away and never use again and do not sleep in…if he had to. :)</p>
<p>Lotemax is a steroid and a fairly weak steroid. It is not an antibiotic. So, it is not truly an infection. Two weeks is an unusually long period of time but without knowing what was wrong, maybe there was a reason. However, Lotemax should not affect interocular eye pressure. </p>
<p>Yes, as someone else said, you can have the eye pressure checked and it is usually a painless procedure with the small puff of air in the eye, though there are other procedures that also measure eye pressure. </p>
<p>“Hey barrons, you tell a 17 year old boy that there is “little lost” with wearing glasses rather than contacts.”
You can always buy the kid some skinny jeans, some cool square glasses and a Euro-style haircut… My D would be very interested, especially if he’s tall.</p>
<p>momof3sons, contacts are so out of fashion. Eyeglasses rule, and all cool kids wear them. Yeah, I know, try to convince a teenager.</p>
<p>You’ve been given some good advice. I want to add - if a medication was obtained from a pharmacy, you can call the pharmacy and speak to a pharmacist if you have questions about your prescription. I found that in many instances pharmacists were more knowledgeable about my prescriptions (side effects, possible drug interactions, etc.) than the doctors prescribing the meds.</p>
<p>soozievt,
Please thank the “doctor in the house.” Unfortunately, DS doesn’t wear daily lenses so that won’t work. One issue is that cross country practice starts tomorrow and he can’t fathom wearing glasses to run. If my S reported back correctly to me, the doc wasn’t even 100% sure what he had, thought it was some sort of unusual form of conjunctivitis. The lower half of one of his eyes got very, very red, but within one day, the Lotemax made a huge difference. I think I am going to tell him that he can ditch the Lotemax after 10 days (our pharmacist thought 7 days would be fine) and throw out the contacts he was wearing when this all started. The doctor’s technician did say that my S did not have to come in to have his ocular eye pressure checked.</p>
<p>dragonmom, sorry, but no luck for your D. I can tell by your comment that my S would not be tall enough for her. ;)</p>
<p>Thanks to all for your replies, witty and otherwise. ;)</p>
<p>I can certainly understand your S not wanting to run in glasses, momof3sons. I wear contacts all the time (rigid gas-permeable trifocal lenses - I have exquisite vision with them, blind without them) and only dig out my glasses once in a blue moon (like when I had an eye infection recently). I can’t stand to wear the glasses because I don’t see nearly as well, and things like walking downstairs feel precarious - I actually hold the railing. So I don’t think it’s only vanity.</p>
<p>Oh, and for anyone who is interested, my incredibly good optometrist told me recently that there is a new, greatly improved procedure for making glasses - some sort of laser technique.</p>
Unfortunately, DS doesn’t wear daily lenses so that won’t work. One issue is that cross country practice starts tomorrow and he can’t fathom wearing glasses to run. If my S reported back correctly to me, the doc wasn’t even 100% sure what he had, thought it was some sort of unusual form of conjunctivitis. The lower half of one of his eyes got very, very red, but within one day, the Lotemax made a huge difference. I think I am going to tell him that he can ditch the Lotemax after 10 days (our pharmacist thought 7 days would be fine) and throw out the contacts he was wearing when this all started. The doctor’s technician did say that my S did not have to come in to have his ocular eye pressure checked.</p>