What Should we do...Dermavate possibly caused cataracts

[allison6564]

HI I'm hoping that someone would be bale to help me with this please.

 

My hubby has had Psoriasis since he was 11 and is now 49. He has had many treatments over the years with light treatment working up until he was about 25 and he also used steroid based creams to.

 

Now when he turned about 30 he found that where the sun used to help it started making it worse and so stopped using light treatments and we were also going thourgh IVF because of a low sperm count and so wanted to make sure that this wasn't affecting the count etc (9 attempts and now have our little miracle aged 9!!!).

 

Anyway...about 15 to 20 years ago he was prescribed a cream called Dermovate mixed with white soft paraffin and this has always cleared it since. He doesn't use it all the time but will use it for a few weeks at a time when he wants to get clear.

 

This has always just been prescribed on a repeat prescription for the past 15 years at our current surgery. At no time as far as we can remember has a doctor called him in about it and if they have then it has still just been repeat prescribed when requested whcih is about every few months.

 

Now a few weeks ago one of the doctors at the surgery requested my husband make an appointment and at this appointment he informed my hubby that where the cream and soft parrafin used to be mixed at the pharmacybut now has to be sent away and so rather than costing a few pounds it is nearly £600 every time they mix a tub!! He asked my hubby if he would mind mixing it himself and of course my hubby said no problem as we understand that is just a crazy cost to the NHS!

Now this cream has always been a 50/50 mix (500g dermavate with 500g WSP) but when the first prescription was collected the dermavate had been reduced. Cutting a long story short my hubby went ot see the doctor this week to query this and it was at this meeting that he was informed that it cna thin the skin (well we knew this) but alarmingly he was told that it cna casue cataracts and eye problems. Now the strange thing is my hubby develoed cataracts when he was about 24 and they literally appeared within a few months and he an operation to have them removed. At the time the doctors were suprised that he had got them so young and also so fast but we just thought it was one of those things.

 

Also in 2007 he lost the sight in one eye over a few weeks and on a visit to the opticians was rushed straight to hospital and operated on the next day at Manchester Eye hospital as he had a 180 degree tear in his retina!!! He had suffred no injury to this eye and it was a serious op and he has very limited vision in this eye now. He also sees a consultant regulalry at the hospital as he has glaucoma and so they monitor the pressure etc.

 

My whole worry here is that should he of been repeat prescribed this cream for so long, did it cause is eye problem and the tear in the retina which can never be fixed?

I'm not very experainced at all with medical compalints and don't know where to begin....would I be better contacting one of the companies that specialise in these things?

[Sali]

I think it would be very tricky to prove a link between the cream and the eye problems.

 

I don't disagree that the medication should have been regularly reviewed with the patient present. Do you have a copy of the leaflet that comes with the cream? Does it give information on long-term use and side-effects relating to the eyes? You probably can get a copy on-line.

 

Don't people with psoriasis have a higher chance of eye problems anyway, regardless whether they use the cream or not?

 

What about the 'light treatments?' Could these have had an impact?

 

Has your husband every tried non-steroid creams like Calmurid? It's used for very dry skin conditions and contains lactic acid, which is an exfoliant, and urea, which is a moisturiser. You can get it with hydrocortisone in too, but I think it's best avoided.