The truth behind Restasis

[youzee]

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea...-rwu010218.php

[LindaDawn]

Thank you for posting. Makes interesting reading. I have been prescribed this drug but it is still unopened in my cupboard!! Think it takes too long to work and am not convinced.

[youzee]

Restasis is an immunosuppressant, that can increase chances of getting infectious diseases and even cancer. I would rather use artificial tears and lubricants for my dry eye than use any drug that can suppress my immune system and increase risk of cancer. read this post below:

https://www.drugs.com/answers/anyone...s-2477936.html

[PG]

I tried Restasis consistently for 8 months. It did not work. It is expensive. It would be very interesting if we could take a yes/no poll on whether it helps.

[Guest]

I agree. Let's have a poll.
.

[youzee]

All medications that contain Cyclosporin, that suppresses your immune system and is the active compound in Restasis, can increase chances of getting cancer.
Restasis was approved by the FDA only because it showed minor improvement in “signs” of dry eye, that included corneal staining only. There was no improvement in “symptoms” of dry eye. That is why, this is an ineffective drug, that was only created by the pharmaceutical company, Allergan to generate profits and millions or billions of $, it was never created for patients, it was only created for profits.

[gilles]

You might scare people off from using cyclosporine drops by saying these things which I am not sure are true. I can tell you this: you can get your drops made by a sterile laboratory (so that "profit conspiracy" is busted) via a clinic where you get treated (as I am at this moment), which leaves us the effectiveness: for something to be medically approved you need a lot of science papers to prove something is good and helps, so I guess that myth is also busted. And as last: what you mentioned about cancer, if I am not mistaken: stress and anxiety (as side-effects of dry eyes) can also lower your immune thus suppress the immune system and increase the risk of cancer, so with that logic cyclosporine could lower the risks (as it is used to treats dry eyes).

[insidious988]

If you look up all of his post on here, he seems to just have registered to be talking shit about cyclosporine.

He seems to have some kind of agenda going on.

[youzee]

Dear all,

I do not have any agenda here. What ever I have posted so far is backed by research papers and science. Please click on the links that I post first and you will see it for yourself

I’m a science Phd student- I conduct research, write and analyze scientific literature and papers all day.

I never cared about Dry eye, until I started having symptoms and got diagnosed with it. That’s when I started looking into it further, researching deeply day and night, about the symptoms, about the treatments and finally joined this forum.

As a science student, I was shocked to see the chemical properties of these dry eye drugs, specially “cyclosporine” that is a known immunosuppressant and can potentially cause cancer.

I know we are in this battle together against dry eye and I hope we can find a solution. I came to this forum to share science links about different dry eye drugs and to bring awareness, so we as patients can better educate ourselves and be able to ask our doctors questions before taking on any of these treatments, even if they are “FDA” approved.

[LindaDawn]

Youzee. Thank you for all your posts. Very grateful to have this information.

[youzee]

Also, I saw this thread about Cyclosporine/ Restasis and cancer:

https://www.drugs.com/answers/anyone...s-2477936.html

[gilles]

Anyway, I just searched for "Immunosuppressive drugs", which can be classified into five groups:

• glucocorticoids
• cytostatics
• antibodies
• drugs acting on immunophilins
• other drug

Antibodies, something that your own body generates (immune system).
Everything can increase the risk of cancer, as I mentioned: even stress can or eating too much red meat, it all depends on the quantity and balance.
0,05% cyclosporine (the origin of the molecule is from a fungus by the way) is very low, you could compare it to microdosing with lion's mane (mushroom) for neurogenesis: it's not as if your IQ will skyrocket after taking it for e.g. 1 year.
Anyway, a lot of research will be done about cyclosporine - and has been done already, which goes back as far as 1999 - so I'm pretty confident that if it is harmful, it'll be removed with prove that will be as hard to convince the science platform as it was to prove that it is useful with dry eyes.

[gilles]

Oh and, we appreciate that as a science Phd student who conducts research, writes and analyzes scientific literature and papers all day you help with information, but you don't have to forget that the peope who we consult for help (professors, doctors, specialists, ...) do also read, write and analyze scientific papers - some have even for many, many year! They educate themself on the matter and try to help us with the best of their knowledge, atleast I am convinced my doctor does.

[youzee]

I’m glad to see that you are content with your doctor and the treatments are working for you. I also appreciate all the efforts of doctors and scientists.

But upon doing my research, this is what I found:

1. This is an article from 1999, when Restasis was originally rejected by the FDA as it did not show any significance. Please click the link below:

https://www.thepharmaletter.com/arti...versus-placebo

The article also includes a comment from some Bloomberg financial analyst stating that if the drug is approved, Allergan’s sales will boost up 10% - this is upsetting to see as it seems that is all Allergan is concerned about is the sales of their drug

2. Also, even as scientists, doctors and the FDA, we all are humans and we make mistakes.

Recently, a month ago the FDA advisor who approved LASIK eye surgery, declared in the news that LASIK approval was a mistake and should be taken off the market as it many side effects. Please click on this link to the news:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbs...en-off-market/

3. And whether Cyclosporine can cause cancer- there is an article written by scientists in the journal Clinical Ophthalmology that discusses this topic in great detail. Here is the link to that article:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704538/

[gilles]

I’m glad to see that you are content with your doctor and the treatments are working for you. I also appreciate all the efforts of doctors and scientists.

But upon doing my research, this is what I found:

1. This is an article from 1999, when Restasis was originally rejected by the FDA as it did not show any significance. Please click the link below:

https://www.thepharmaletter.com/arti...versus-placebo

The article also includes a comment from some Bloomberg financial analyst stating that if the drug is approved, Allergan’s sales will boost up 10% - this is upsetting to see as it seems that is all Allergan is concerned about is the sales of their drug

2. Also, even as scientists, doctors and the FDA, we all are humans and we make mistakes.

Recently, a month ago the FDA advisor who approved LASIK eye surgery, declared in the news that LASIK approval was a mistake and should be taken off the market as it many side effects. Please click on this link to the news:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbs...en-off-market/

3. And whether Cyclosporine can cause cancer- there is an article written by scientists in the journal Clinical Ophthalmology that discusses this topic in great detail. Here is the link to that article:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704538/

And for the 2 links you gave me I can give you thousand of links with positive feedback about cyclosporine, e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4076204/, where I quote:

A large amount of information is available concerning cyclosporine and its use both as an ophthalmic treatment and as an immunomodulator, and the mechanism of action is well understood. Cyclosporine 0.05% (formulated as Restasis) is the only FDA-approved prescription drug available for patients with DES. It has also been used as a treatment for other conditions that may be secondary to DES. Positive effects are consistently seen with the use of this drug for treatment of DES. In contrast to systemic use of cyclosporine, topical application has few side effects, because only small amounts can penetrate into the bloodstream after topical application.

Anyway, I think it's clear that every medicine will have positive and negative feedback (i.e., in form of papers), as long as the number of positive exceed the number of negative ones. And other than some stinging and that it did have only a small effect or no stinging and great effect, I haven't really read anything else here on this forum. So I guess there is nothing else than to make a poll and see the results of peoples experience related to cyclosporine eyedrops on this forum and invest our time in searching for other solution that may help solve or relieve our dry eye problem