Glaucoma drops and LS cell damage

Have you heard anything about LS cell damage and certain Glaucoma drops??  Read an article that one doc felt it may occure in some cases affecting visual acuity. can't find the article again ( net ) or any like it .  I was on Travatan and Kosopt ( one drop each ) that reduced OP to under 20 for open angle Glaucoma--vision went from 20-30 best corrected to 20-80 in a year-- after a dozen specialists
some of which said there wasn't anything wrong with the eye and vision should be 20-20  My current doctor ( after taking web advice to keep trying and not give up ) said I may be having a toxic reaction to my drops . He flushed eyes and discontinued drops and after 4 weeks vision started improving--now in 8 months it is now is a very blurry 20-40 or decent 20-50  .
Drug company and current doc both said it happens ---   Do think the doc may be right???
I had Cataract surgery--capsolotomy--laser for lattice  is it possible that LS damage from all the surgery combined with the drops were the culprit??  If thats the case would LS cell trasplant get me back to 20-30 or even 20-20 .    I also have severe dry eye and light sensativity that current doc said I had before all the problems , and the laser and surgery  may have contributed to getting worse .  He felt that we should stay on current regiment for now. OOps almost forgot taking meds for Occular Rosecea which he says also makes  symptoms worse.

Your thoughts on the docs LS opinion ( on net ) and do you feel that the between 20-40 and 20-50 acuity may be reasonable given all the eye trauma , dry eye, Rosecea,  and forgot mild leakage on dye test
from diabetes ( not in macula area )  Things have improved so much in the past few months-wouldn't want them to get worse with even more surgery . Maybe doc has a point.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

Abbreviations are hard to interpret and many used here are not standard. Please write out what you mean by LS damage and LS opinion.

JCH III MD

[frwbeach]

Limbel Stem Cell--sorry .  I did find a few articles last evening that basically said that
it has been established that surgery and laser procedures traumatize Limbel Stem Cells and effect visual acuity . I have not found anything that says some Glaucoma drops do however.  The closest thing I found to what my wife said she read was that chemical burns can damage Limbal Stem cells and cause vision loss.   My current doctor did tell us that all the surgery and laser surgery on my eyes is probibly responsible for most of the lost visual acuity--maybe thats what he meant. He onlt said I was having a toxic reaction to the drops and not that they do or did any damage .    

      I had an old employee call me to see how I was doing and he told me of a neighbor that went to a local eye center and they did multiple surgery on his eyes starting with cataracts and he ended up traveling to a big eye center and having a transplant done
to repair damage done by all the operations done locally--I said a cornea transplant and he said no that wasn't it but didn't remember what it was.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

I am not aware of any papers that have been published showing that limbal stem cell damage leads to reduced vision by any mechnism other than corneal opacification. Most limbal stem cell transplants are done for things like corneal scarring due to toxic chemicals such as alkali burns. Stem Cell translplants to a damaged cornea is a standard procedure now.

I am not aware of any research that glaucoma drops cause LSC damage.

Of the medications your taking travatan in rare cases can cause iritis and/or macular edema and would be the only way I could relate your reduced vision to your medications. In that case they might stop the Travatan and treat you with seroids and Acular or Xibrox.

JCH III MD