Bacterial Conjunctivitis Treatment Experiment

Bacterial Conjunctivitis Treatment Experiment Introduction and Background Thanks to the wildly popular Judd Apatow hit â€Å"Knocked Up†, an alarming number of Americans believe that you can contract â€Å"pinkeye† (conjunctivitis) by farting into your pillow. Contrary to popular belief, simply passing gas is not enough to spread conjunctivitis. Conjunctivitis is categorized by the redness or swelling of the conjunctiva – the membrane that lines the eyelid and eye surface. This membrane is typically clear but when it is infected, it becomes red or pink and swells – thus, the common name â€Å"pinkeye† since the infected eye literally appears to be pink. 10 Common symptoms associated with conjunctivitis include eye redness (hyperemia), swollen or red eye lids, an excess of tearing, a burning or itching feeling in the eye, sensitivity to light (photophobia) and drainage from the eye. Conjunctivitis is common but not typically considered threatening – as it can disappear on its own in 7 to 10 days. However, particular strains of bacterial conjunctivitis – namely those caused by the sexually transmitted infections gonorrhea or Chlamydia – can very harmful.9 Most cases of conjunctivitis are caused by viruses or bacteria. However, dry eyes caused by lack of tears or over exposure to wind and sun, chemicals, fumes or smoke (known as chemical conjunctivitis) and allergies are also common culprits. The viral and bacterial forms of conjunctivitis are the contagious forms and subsequently, the most common. The majority of cases are caused by adenoviruses and can be attributed to poor hygiene (i.e. not washing your hands after using the restroom or poor care of contact lenses).10 Since there is no medication available to treat the viral form of conjunctivitis, patients are advised to avoid contact with others until symptoms begin to improve – which typically lasts three to five days. Bacterial conjunctivitis can be treated with a wide variety of antibioti cs including Levofloxacin, Vigamox Opht (Vigamox), Azasite Opht (Azasite) and Polymyxin B Sul-Trimethoprim Opht (Polytrim).5 Patients may return to usual activities such as work and school 24 hours after taking their first does of the prescribed antibiotic. To test and diagnose conjunctivitis, your primary care physician or optometrist can take a sample of eye secretions from the conjunctiva and send the sample to a laboratory for analysis. To prevent the spread of conjunctivitis – bacterial or viral – patients are advised to wash their hands often, to avoid sharing any form of eye make-up, to replace contacts with eye glasses if available and to wash all bed linens, pillowcases and towels with hot water and detergent. Bacterial Conjunctivitis Bacterial conjunctivitis is relatively less common than viral conjunctivitis, especially in adults.3 and essentially, despite having clinically suggestive signs and symptoms of bacterial conjunctivitis, the diagnosis can be incor rect in approximately 50% of cases. Further, bacteria that reside among the normal ocular flora can result in â€Å"false positives† when microbiologic tests are performed.3 This makes treatment of this form of conjunctivitis difficult. In fact, according to multiple studies, general practitioners are unable to determine whether conjunctivitis is bacterial or viral and therefore resort to prescribing antibiotics regardless. According to an article published in BMJ, when confronted with acute infectious conjunctivitis, most general practitioners feel unable to discriminate between a bacterial and a viral cause. In practice, more than 80% of such patients receive antibiotics.  Hence, in cases of acute infectious conjunctivitis, many unnecessary ocular antibiotics are prescribed.4 In 2001 in the Netherlands; more than 900,000 prescriptions for topical ocular antibiotics were issued, at a cost of  £8.85 million ($10.9 million). In England 3.4 million community prescriptions f or these antibiotics are issued each year, at a cost to the NHS of  £4.7 million ($7.1 million, $8.7 million).4