Product liability/defective drug lawyers have recently been seeing a number of cases of a serious and painful eye infection, Acanthamoeba Keratitis, that can leave its victims with permanent vision loss or blindness. AK is a rare, local infection that most often occurs in healthy people, most of whom wear contact lenses. The severity of AK varies greatly from person to person. Product liability attorneys are current looking into the possible link between Acanthamoeba Keratitis and multi-purpose contact lens solutions including:
- Complete MoisturePlus (made by Bausch & Lomb)
- ReNu with MoistureLoc (Bausch & Lomb)
- ReNu MultiPlus (Bausch & Lomb)
- Opti-Free (Alcon)
- SOLO-care (Ciba Vision)
- Complete MoisturePlus Multi-Purpose Solution (Advanced Medical Optics)
Signs and Symptoms of AK
Though each case of Acanthamoeba Keratitis varies greatly from person to person, there are common signs and symptoms you can look for including:
- Pain in the eye area
- Red eyes
- Blurry vision
- Sensitivity to light
- Excessive tearing
- Sensation of something being in the eye
Diagnosis and Treatment of AK
Early diagnosis is imperative to treat AK effectively. Your eye doctor can diagnose AK by evaluating your symptoms, scrape the eye to detect growth of the amoeba, and seeing the amoeba in a process called confocal microscopy. AK is actually misdiagnosed fairly often by being confused with other forms of keratitis caused by bacteria, fungi, or viruses such as herpes. If you have an infection and it’s not responding well to treatment, you should ask your doctor to consider AK.
There are eye drops to treat AK, but this infection is sometimes very difficult to treat.
Complete MoisturePlus Multi-Purpose Solution made by Advanced Medical Optics (AMO) has recently been recalled.
If you or someone you love has used these eye products and subsequently developed a painful eye infection, please contact a personal injury attorney in your area today.
