anyone stop cycylosporine/restasis and have good luck?

[jenny2008]

i was curious if anyone has stopped cyclosporine per their doc's advise or just on their own and whether their eyes got better or worse?? I have been on it for years and it seems that I am not being helped by it..just curious.thanks

[Eagle_39]

Funny you should mention that. I've been on Restasis for about a year now, and someone at work just mentioned something to me. They said that they heard somewhere that you can't just stop using the stuff. I guess that's 4th hand information, but I'm interested to see if anyone knows anything about that. Thanks, Jenny, for reading my mind.

[jenny2008]

haha.. well i stopped cold turkey once before-but... I had only been taking it like 3 months... I always heard you could stop.. but i don't know if anyone who does gets worse, better, no difference?? i have always heard that it works great for some people but some don't respond to it.i definitely am anxious to see if anyone responds!!!

[pecan121]

I had been using the stuff for over a year and I didn't think it was helping so Iquit it cold turkey. I didn't notice any difference. Then a couple of months later I was complaining about my Synergeyes gumming up with mucus and someone suggested I go back to Restasis and use it 4x a day, not 2. I took his suggestion and within a few days I did notice a big improvement with my lenses!

[ryanross]

My eye doctor told me that if you quit using restasis after taking it for long periods of time (over a year) then it takes about 3 months for you to notice a difference because of the way the medicine works. He says many of his patients tell him they stopped using it for a few weeks and didn't notice a difference, but have complaints down the road as it was simply too soon to tell. Also, he mentioned that its safe to stop at any time, just that its effects will eventually ware off, if that what Eagle_39 was implying that he heard.

[PotatoCakes]

I've been prescribed Restasis by a number of physicians and never once been told you couldn't stop cold-turkey.

One thing that I could see re: improvement by stopping Restasis... if you have a sensitivity or allergy to the castor oil, you'd definitely see an improvement by discontinuing the product. One of my specialists prescribed me compounded Restasis (through http://www.leiterrx.com/) and a LOT of irritation stopped immediately. I still don't know if it's going to work for me but the really inflammed lids and extreme burning I got after application has stopped.

[Mawsky]

Hi, I just stopped using the restasis about 3 weeks ago, kinda wish I had written it on the calendar so I'd know for sure now, after reading some of the replies here, I'm only one person, but I can give you my results. My eyes have always seemed to go off and on, where I will have a really good period where they feel almost normal, and I may only use drops a few times a day, to really bad, where I'm constantly putting in drops, this all while I was using the restasis 2x per day (about 5 months continuously) My eyes were feeling better for a day or so, and I noticed when I woke up they felt pretty good, and then after putting in the restasis they were irritated again (always caused burning) I decided to see what would happen if I stopped. Well I had a great run about 3 weeks of great eyes, and for some reason I'm going through a bit of a bad spell right now, dont know but may be improving. Now how would one know if the wearing off of the Restasis takes a few weeks, or just my eyes go through these ups and downs?? I'm going to wait it out and I'll repost what happens, but my gut feeling right now is that my eyes are really no different with or without the Restasis, I know it takes time to see results from the restasis in the begining, but I think I used them long enough to tell, and I still had the good and bad periods. Please let us know what you decide to do, I'm very curious about this with others...thanks :-)

[jenny2008]

Hey Mawksy,

Thanks for posting this... I have sjogrens but my symptoms seem similiar to what you describe. I will have several weeks where i barely use drops=feel pretty good with dryness mostly late at night but not that bad, etc.. then i start to get flare ups and it can go on and on for several weeks.. I took restasis for about 4 months got off of it for about 3 , started back up again for a few years and then moved to a higher dose of cyclosporine .2%-my idea-not my docs.. anyway, i havent noticed anymore tear production with the higher dose but i cannot tolerate drops wtih preservatives and i sometimes wonder if the corn oil (castor oil for restasis ) that the cyclosporine irritates my eyes or if the cyclosporine is the irritant or maybe neither one is.. i am like you and dont know what is causing what... i kind of feel if i stop taking it i will be about the same.. please let me know when your bad spell goes away. i hope soon.. you posted this at a perfect time as i just hada horrible flare up where the only relief i got was from crying!