Contact Lens Wearer seeks solution without Pain

Since April, when the FDA recalled Bausch & Lomb's ReNu MoistureLoc, more and more people have been coming forward with complaints.

MoistureLoc, their all-in-one contact lens solution, has been linked to Fusarium, a serious fungal eye infection that can lead to blindness. And while Baush & Lomb is now feeling the FDA recalls in their wallet with 2006 pretax earnings projected at nearly 80 percent lower than expected, their customers have felt it in their wallets, and much worse, in their eyes.

"The burning was really, really bad," says Lea Ann Flanagan of Jackson, MS, who began using ReNu MoistureLoc over three years ago when she first started wearing contact lenses. "My husband [who was also using the solution] and I couldn't wear our contacts for more than twenty minutes. The doctor had prescribed [ReNu MoistureLoc] and when I went back, he said the burning must be because I have very dry eyes and that I should keep using it."

When her eyes went a "bloodshot red", Lea Ann's husband James thought she had Pink Eye. But she knew it had something to do with the solution and decided she couldn't keep treating her eyes like a lab experiment.

"I just stopped wearing [my contacts]," she explains.

Like the other 24 million of the 30 million contact lens wearers, Lea Ann and James Flanagan wore soft lenses. Traditionally soft lenses were cleansed, soaked and rinsed in three separate solutions and in three separate steps. All-in-one solutions like ReNu MoistureLoc became popular because of the ease of usage: you fill your lens cases with the multi-purpose solution, put your lenses in and after a period of time to allow for disinfection, you can put them right back in your eyes.

However, the ease of use hardly seems worth risking your vision for, so people like Lea Ann Flanagan, who are now afraid to trust any contact lens solutions on the market, have switched to wearing glasses.

Fortunately Lea Ann and James Flanagan didn't contract the Fusarium infection but they have suffered long-term effects from using ReNu MoistureLoc.

"I still have problems with my eyes burning, mainly when I'm in the sun," she says.

And her husband has lasting problems since using MoistureLoc as well, with blocked drainage causing a lot of pressure and pain in his eyes.

Lea Ann wisely trusted her instincts despite her doctor's advice to continue using ReNu, and possibly saved her vision in the process.