Should We Be Treating Conjunctivitis?
October 31, 2009
An article in EyeWorld discussed controversies in the treatment of conjunctivitis. I don’t get it- it’s a no-brainer. Except for STD’s, treating conjunctivitis only reduces the symptoms for a day or two, so I typically don’t treat it unless it’s quite symptomatic, and when I do treat it, I certainly don’t use fluoroquinolones! Why are ophthalmologists using these big guns for a benign, self-limited condition? Further, probably half the time it’s viral, so nothing helps anyway. Interestingly, the article cited a study that demonstrated that even external disease specialists can barely distinguish between bacterial and viral conjunctivitis! Oh well- I always thought I was pretty good at that.
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