Question:
My wifes grandmother is about 89 years old. She sees 20/20 without any medicine or galsses. Her eye doctor recently gave her a free sample of Xalatan and told her that anyone over 65 years old should take it as a "preventative measure". Some how that jsut doesn't sound like good advice to me. She is not complaining of any blurring. She has no vision problems at all. Is it possible this nut just wants to change the color of her eyes?????
Answer:
Using glaucoma medications "as a preventative measure" is a new one on me. It is certainly not the "standard of care". Besides being therapeautically unsound, it is a big waste of money. Presuming your mother-in-law DOESN'T have elevated pressure, questionable optic nerves, and /or visual fields defects, I would never initiate any medications. (Is she mentally sharp? Sometimes an elderly patient does not hear or remember everything that was said or the dr. may not have explained it well enough.....or both)
Besides unless she has fairly advanced glaucoma, any treatment would probably be a waste given her advanced age. (It is a judgement call). There is NO cure for glaucoma. The intention is simply delay the disease and significant visual loss throughout their life. But if she is 89 now......she may live to be 110!!!
Xalatan works by increasing the outflow of aqueous ...lowering pressure. It has fewer serious side-effect that the old favorites such as Timoptic and Betoptic such as pulmonary and cardiac complications. But about 1/3 of the patients with a light color eyes using Xalatan have a darkening of the iris. They also sometimes have darker, thicker eyelashes..............purely cosmetic. I usually reserve Xalatan for people with dark eyes already.
