Alrex for ocular rosacea

[CMVconcern]

Hey guys, looking for someone with medical experience to answer this question, please...

I have ocular rosacea. It was bad for a while & then sort of disappeared, and has now reappeared. I am trying to reset my diet to cope with it (no alcohol, low carbs and sugars, lots of water, etc). Doctor gave me Lastacast but it's not doing much of anything.

For several years I was using Alrex sporadically with GREAT success. I had my pressure checked regularly and there was never a problem. The last time I went back to my doc however he said that I shouldn't use Alrex regularly and took me off of it. I'm wondering if anyone has any concrete info on this: IS Alrex safe to use long-term (say, once a day, each eye), provided that your pressure in the eye does not increase and is monitored? Can there be other long-term effects that appear instantly without any warning, even without increased pressure? I don't want to be on this forever but I'm in agony and it really does help.

Here's a study I found which seems to point toward the safety of Alrex, esp given that some of the patients had instilled over 3,000 (!) drops/year??

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14722462

[CMVconcern]

Thank you doctor...so not to be redundant, but do you mean that as long as I go back to the eye doc say every 3 months and get looked at for ocular pressure and any cataracts, that Alrex should be considered ok for prolonged use?

I guess my main fear is that, say I use Alrex for 6 months, and then the condition gets better and I stop. And at the time when I stop, my eyes have no problem. Would there be a risk, years later, that I would suddenly get cataracts as a result of the previous Alrex use? I'm guessing 'not really,' based on your answer...

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

Mild steroids can be used under supervision.

Dr. O.