This man came to my pharmacy and was almost crying because the doctor said if he does not use his eye medication, he might go blind. The problem remains that he does not have money to buy those medication for maintenance doses. His worst fear is that he still has kids who are in the secondary and primary schools and his wife is only a hawker whose profit can barely feed the family for a day.
After narrating his story, I had to get the cheapest brand of the eye medications which he could still not afford. Should he go ahead to beg for funds? Should he increase his working hours? but he is already advanced in age and could not. It was a pitiable case I must say. To cut this story short he went with the medication but that was to serve him for just few days to weeks.
While ruminating on his condition, I began to read to know possible causes of Cataract which is condition in which the lens becomes cloudy. The protein in the eye lens are disintegrated to make the lens look blurry.
The major symptoms ranging from having blurry vision, seeing double images, sensitivity to light, seeing bright colors as faded and a need for more light to see at night.
Causes of cataract includes; excess exposure of eye to sun rays without glasses, medical conditions like diabetes, genetic, injury to the eye and use of corticosteroids(causes cataract at early age). To slow down it’s progression, most commonly glasses are usually recommended, though some eye supplements are used, there are debates about their effectiveness and then eye drops are also used.
Being aware that most commonly used corticosteroids are culprit in this disease, there is a need to pause, stop and tapper down for those who truly need to use it to prevent rebound effects.
MEDICATION MISSUSE 