you may have heard recently that there were some very dangerous eye drops that caused some very
serious eye infections including eight counts of vision loss four counts of a nucleation they had
to take the eyeball out and three counts of death and so this has been leaving a lot of
people asking the question is it okay to use my regular eye drops what is going on in the
eye drop world so in this video we're going to go over exactly what happened which eye drops
are dangerous and some tips to make sure that your regular eye drops are safe let's focus in
yeah the eye drops in question that are being investigated by the FDA and CDC are infected with
a rare strain called pseudomonas aeruginosa and this can cause some of the worst eye infections
that eye doctors will ever see in their career I have never seen this in fact this particular
strain has actually never been seen in America before in fact the infection can be so bad it can
melt the cornea and cause perforation or a hole in the cornea so the inside is actually exposed
to the outside within 24 hours of being infected so it happens really really fast and like I said
can cause vision loss if it's perforated that eye needs to be pulled out or a nucleated or if this
infection gets into the bloodstream can actually cause death these eye drops as we care artificial
tears are the ones that were causing the infection and they're manufactured in India by global Pharma
Healthcare now you'll probably see a bunch of news articles that were reporting there were
10 artificial tears that were causing these eye infections but there were actually 10 artificial
tears among all these patients that were getting these eye infections that they had used but there
are one common artificial tear among all the patients and that was the ezricare artificial
tear now when they found the common eye drop they tested unopened and open bottles and they
found the strain that was causing all these eye infections and so that led them to investigate the
manufacturing site and all the drops were recalled back in January 2023. you may also have heard of
two other eye drops that were recalled by their companies one was purely soothing MSM eye drops
that is used for eye irritation and inflammation another eye drop that's called bromonidine it's a
glaucoma medication and these were voluntarily recalled by their companies there weren't any
reported eye injuries or eye infections by these eye drops I think with bromonidine they found some
cracks in their bottles on a couple of lots that they found and so they recalled them but
yeah not related to this case with ezricare artificial tears okay so now for the question
that everybody's been asking is it okay to use my regular artificial tears that I've been using and
so now let's go over a tip that will ensure your safety that relates to this case with
ezricare artificial tears the reported ezricare artificial tier that was responsible for all these
eye infections was a preservative free artificial tear and a regular multi-dose bottle now usually
with preservative free artificial tears that come in individual single-use tiers so you can use one
and then throw it away and then you'll have these to use later that haven't been exposed
to anything this will make sure that the rest of the drops don't get contaminated you'll also see
preservative free tiers that have a special type of bottle with a special type of cap or lid and
this type of lid is specifically designed to limit any contamination to get back into the solution
inside of the bottle the ezricare artificial tears had a normal designed bottle that's
usually used for preservative artificial tears whereas preservative free tears if you want a
multi-dose bottle need to have this special design cap to limit the contamination so if you make sure
that the eye drops that you are using especially preservative free artificial tears either have
the individual vials or the specially designed cap then they are safe to use now one thing to mention
with the ezricare artificial tears is likely the contamination came from the manufacturing point
and that's what they're investigating right now so it's unlikely that the bottle was contaminated
when it was opened by the actual person that got the infection it likely came from the original
Source but if you do find a product that is using preservative-free artificial tears and they're
not taking the proper steps and safety protocols by using the proper bottle or vials then likely
they're not taking the proper steps to be safe at the manufacturing Point as well and so that's
just something definitely to be aware of the big thing is if you've used the Ezra care artificial
tears or any eye drop and you're getting any of the symptoms of redness mucus discharge eye pain
light sensitivity go in to see your eye doctor as soon as you can because you just don't know
what's going on with your eyes if you have any questions about eye drops or as we care
artificial tears leave them in the comments I'm Dr Neal Guymon, Dr EyeGuy, stay focused