What medicines should glaucoma (POAG) patients avoid?
Steroids (cortisone, hydrocortisone, prednisolone, etc.) increase eye pressure. If you need to use steroids for longer than 2 weeks, your eye pressure has to be monitored during use. This includes use of steroid-containing eyedrops, steroid pills, and steroid creams over large areas of the body. Use of steroid creams for small skin lesions is unlikely to increase pressure. If you are taking steroids now, do not discontinue them – just tell us about it and come in for a re-evaluation. Steroid use for less than 2 weeks generally does not require special monitoring of eye pressures.
