UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Hi

Does anyone here use Celluvisc?...and if so do you use it with/prior to putting in your contact lenses?....

How do you find it for

a) dry eyes
b) contact lens comfort?

Many thanks!

J

I was recommended to use Celluvisc by a certain Scleral lens proponent at Moorfields

The idea was to provide additional comfort by filling a scleral with Celluvisc rather than just saline. Of course, that does likely mean that it's somewhat safe to use in the eye long-term!

Not really used it for dry eye yet, but my consultant has also recently recommended it for that very purpose - and hopefully to gain a little extra vision before my DVLA sight test on Monday

I'm using Celluvisc.
I'm using it with the scleral i'm "piggy backing" with.
That is, I wet the scleral and rinse with saline as usual.
Then I fish the daily disposable soft lens out of its little pot and place it inside the scleral. And genrally have to take it out and rinse it with saline and try again several times due to getting air bubbles under it.
I then put a blob of celluvisc inside the soft lens that is now inside the scleral and put them both in together.

The idea of this is that the soft lens will stay in place better rather than floating round in a sea of saline and getting in the wrong place by the time they are both "in".
In that I quite often get them out of alignment and have to take them out and try again this isn't perfect, but it does tend to float about if there's a lot of saline.
What doesn't help is that my eyes are now stepper than any normal D/D soft lenses, and hence so are the insides of the sclerals I wear, so the soft lenses is likely to float about rather than fit the scleral shape too well (and the soft lens doesn't go in and stay in properly if I try to put it in first without the scleral.

The drawbacks of the celluvisc are:
1. it's more viscous than either saline or tears and the vision when I first put in the piggybacked pair of lenses looks rather blurry until I've generated enough tears to dilute it a bit. It settles down after a while though; and
2. Moorfields Pharmacy will only give one month's supply at a time - though whether a "time" means per appointment, per blue slip or per six months seems to vary with who you ask - and of course is diferent from what the practitioners have just told you. One of the pharmacy people told me my GP would write me out a prescription for the other 3 months on the prescription from the blue slip, and all GPs in the London area knew all about MEH blue slips. Needless to say, when I took the blue slip into my doctors, no-one had ever heard of the things!! When this was relayed back to MEH pharmacy, they denied I'd ever been told that; or that there was a list of people with "difficult doctors" who wouldn't write prescriptions from the blue slips. And, again needless to say, none of the chemists round here stock the stuff. When the GP
s had got me to wait inthe waiting room till the end of the queue - as if I didn't have enough other things to do that day! - and a doctor I'd never met before rang up MEG to ask what on earth this bit of blue paper was, and eventually agree to write a prescrition - fo one month's supply only - the chemists had to order it specially and told me to come back next week.

As for helping with dry eyes, I don't know, as I only get dry eye problems iwth nasty air con systems and being outside inthe wind. I haven't had encounters with air cons from hell since I started piggy backing.
Rosemary

Thanks for the info all!

Its just that I have started using this every other day in my grafted eye to provide moisture etc.

Hello all

Who makes celluvisc? and how is it supplied, big bottle/small bottle single vials etc?

John - when you use it do you not use any saline???

I have heard it mentioned previously and know quite a few who post here find it useful and am thinking maybe I should give it a try. Currently I am using Boston Advance solutions (cleaning and conditioning) and normasol sachets of saline, as this type of saline is all I can get locally and on prescription, the Boston of course I have to pay for as it is not seen as a necessity, vanity for contact lens you know and very costly as I seem to use it quite a bit.

Greatful for any comments

Susan

Celluvisc is made by Allergan.
Chemically, it is "Carmellose sodium 1.0%"
It comes in boxes each containing 30 little ampoules, each containing 0.4 ml of the product.
(The amoules actually come in 6 strips of 5.)

They are allegedly for "single use" but the snap off top can actually but popped back on again, and I find one ampoule will do two or maybe three times.

The box says they are lubricant eye drops", "solution preservative free", and that the stuff "relieves dry eye symptoms".

Say if you want any more info; I'll leae the box and the leaflet beside the computer for a day or two.

Rosemary

Well, if you're using an ampoule of the stuff to fill a scleral, then it's not quite enough at first sight.

Of course, only half-filling the scleral feels really weird at first, as you don't get the reassuring cold shock when dipping the eye into the saline-filled scleral. But of course, there's more than enough liquid to fill the gap once it's on your eye.

No, I don't use any saline (apart from cleaning/rinsing.

Thanks, Rosemary. Not sure what else will be on the box that may be useful, any information glady received.

John - I think not having been at work for so long has haddled my brain, I am not sure that I fully understand your comments.
I take it from your post that you just use the celluvisc only to fill your sclerals and this works ok for you.

I still fill my sclerals to the brim as I find I can get air bubbles just by blinking. I think I will try to get some celluvisc and give it a try or if I struggle to find it I will ask at my next hospital appointment and see what they say.

thanks

Susan

Susan

I got my Celluvisc from here if that helps

http://www.contact-lens-direct.co.uk/Ce ... icant.html

Thanks Jay,

I will give that a go.

Susan