Chronic comformer infections

[aprilk24]

Does anyone have experience with chronic eye infections with conformers? Once my son, who is 16 months with bilat micro, got his 2nd and 3rd set of conformers he's had a lot of infections. THey clear up for a short time but come back. He even gets them occationally while we're tapering the antibiotics. DOes anyone have experience with an issue like this? Wondering if there is something we haven't tried. Thanks April

[Jodi]

Hi April

Have you asked your doc about a low dose antibiotic ointment for daily use, maybe something to help prevent instead of correct? Just thoughts.

Jodi

[aprilk24]

At this point we can't even get him off the higher dose antibiotics. AS soon as we start cutting them back, he gets breakthrough infections. We've used tobrex, tobradex and vigamox. We don't take out his conformers and I wonder if maybe we may have too. I hate to do that but I wonder if it would help. MAybe once he's over that 2 yr old mark and the growing is slowed????? April

[ohbilatmicromom]

Hi April,
Our son is 5 years old and has bilat micro and also wears the shells. He too gets chronic eye infections. By this I mean his eyes are constantly producing what we call yellowish, goopy, eye discharge. So, he is on erythromycin eye ointment for about 7 days once daily whenever we feel its needed. He is also on Zaditor eye drops when needed. Since he wears clear shells ( he has some limited vision in R eye) we do remove them to clean, but not to apply his eye ointment or administer his eye drops for glaucoma. He does however, have a tiny holes in the shells which might help alittle. Since it seems that Tobradex is a combined steroid and antibiotic, he may be building at tolerance to these meds and trying the erythomycin eye ointment may work for awhile. Just a thought!
Good luck and I share the same probs with my son!
Michelle Ballard

[aprilk24]

Hey MIchelle- thanks for the info. HOw often do you clean the shells? HOw often would you say that you use the erythromycin ointment? I often wondered if making a hole in the shell would help. I'll talk to the occularist to see what he thinks. Why did they decide to do that? What is Zaditor? Haven't heard of that one. We use a lubricant eye drop called Genteal. So good to talk to someone with some experience. :) THanks- how is your son doing visually? Did he start school this fall? THanks, April

[ohbilatmicromom]

We clean them as needed, honestly. It goes in spurts, sometimes every 2-3 weeks, sometimes every other day. Just depends on eye junk. We are in the middle of week 1 without emycin ointment and I think we last removed the shells about a week ago. It just goes in spurts.

Zaditor is now OTC, but its just an allergy drop. Was thinking it had to do with possible allergies too, not really sure, just trying. Doesn't really seem to do much though.

The occularist originally put the holes in the shells because he had some vision and wanted to make sure enough O2 got to his eyes and so they wouldn't dry out. He recently, this past July, put 2 wholes in the good eye cause they were thinking it wasn't getting enough.

Good luck!!

[aprilk24]

Hey Michelle. THanks for the info- I happened to notice that you said you were finishing up with nursing school at the time of the conference. I'm a nurse too and thought that it was interesting that our kids both have bilat micro too. What type of area are you in now and do you like it? April

[JessicaHolt]

This is getting to be too weird. I am too in nursing school and there is another little boy in Sacramento who is unilateral micro and his mom is a nurse, too. Was everyone in nursing school while they were pregnant. Or around any of the bacterialcides? I am starting to wonder if something used for disinfecting can play a part in all this?

[aprilk24]

Hey Jessica- to answer your question: I wasn't in nursing school at the time I was pregnant but I was a nurse at the time. I've had plenty of exposure to anti-bacterials. Who knows? Its' interesting that there are so many nurses. HUM???? April :confused:

[JessicaHolt]

I agree. I know in school we used Roccal-D. I never thought twice about being around the products because when I was pregnant with my first I was around Birex working in a dental office and Jordyn is fine. I am starting to think that there is something in the Roccal that may have contributed since it says dispose of as a pesticide. I started looking up the MSDS after Jadyn my baby with micro was born.

[juliep]

Hi April
My daughter used to have chronic infectons, it seemed to be that as one finished another started. I was not happy about antibiotic treatment.
They took a swab of the eye and when the teasts came back there was no actual infection present, even though her eye was constantly weeping a yellow or green discharge. Her opthalmologist explained to me that it wasnt an infection, but her eye was trying to reject a foreign body (her prosthesis).
They did lessen with time and I dont think she has had any since she was about nine years old, she is 22 now.

[Addon27]

Your question on chronic conformer infections is very common. My 4 year old has constant discharge. One interesting piece of advice that I received from an opthomologist was to make sure that her eyelashes were cleaned and use some of the antibiotic on the eyelashes also. I found this advise to be helpful in reducing the infection and discharge. I hope this is helpful.

[ohbilatmicromom]

Hey April, Jessica
Finally responding.Sorry for the delay I do not get on as much as I would like these days! I was not in nursing school while I was pregnant, I went back when he was one! I am a pediatric nurse (go figure!) I am hoping to be able to attend the next conference whenever and wherever that may be! We went to a conference in Sept 2007 in Michigan for Parents of visually impaired in Michigan and met 2 other families, one who was exactly like Jalen same age and everything, bilat micro with cataracts, now glaucoma and another with unilateral micro. This family with the daughter with unilateral actually went to the ICAN conference, so it was nice to have met them and they kinda filled us in on the conference. It was definitly nice to be around similar families that's for sure!!

I hope the eye infections have subsided and holes have been placed in the conformers! We still deal with this chronic infection all the time, but it does not seem as often!

Michelle