Medications and Dry Eye Side Effects
New pharmaceuticals and their generic counterparts are approved every week by the FDA. In 2020, 50 novel drugs were approved by the FDA. While this is great news for those whose health conditions can be better treated and managed with these new drugs or medication costs reduced with the approval of generic formulations, all medications can produce side effects. For people with chronic or serious illnesses that require multiple daily prescription medications, the side effects can be compounded. What you may not realize, is that some of these side effects can significantly impact the eyes, including contributing to dry eye. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control show that “… during 2015–2016, almost one-half of the U.S. population used one or more prescription drugs in the past 30 days (45.8%). Prescription drug use increased with age*, and a higher percentage of females (50.0%) than males (41.5%) used prescription drugs, but the pattern varied by age.” *Prescription drug use increased with age, from 18.0% of children under age 12 years to 85.0% of adults aged 60 and over. Polypharmacy, the term to describe the use of multiple pharmaceuticals, can create very complex interactions and complications for patients. These interactions can be difficult to predict. The authors of this study note that oral polypharmacy is the most common cause of dry mouth but has not been investigated as a cause of dry eye. The nervous system mechanism that causes dry mouth as a side effect is the same one that also causes dry [...]
