Taste Change with Medication for Glaucoma?

I have glaucoma in one eye, and for 6 weeks was on methazolomide, Neptazane. It didn't lower the pressure, and it had the nasty side effect of causing everything I eat to taste like crap. So I stopped it, with the doctor's approval.

The pharmacist said my sense of taste will return to normal in time. Is there any chance it will stay crappy like this?

Does anyone know how long this will take? I miss tasting food. Thanks

Thank you so much yagman. I have had laser twice, and am on Trusopt and Travatan. The pills were in addition to those, but they did not do anything to lower pressure. Probably this year I will have invasive surgery. I am only 51, that is what they are concerned about.

Don't worry. As the neptazane is metabolized and excreted by your body your taste will return to normal.

I am interested as to why your doctor used oral neptazane to treat your glaucoma. I seldom use oral drugs for glaucoma treatment for exactly this reason. I am trying to treat a localized disease of an eye that can generally be well treated with TOPICAL drops which have very low risk of generalized side effects. Neptazane requires regular monitoring of your blood to check for any of these side effects.

I would recommend controlling your pressures using topical drops if at all possible. If the drops are not able to control your pressure adequately, there are laser procedures such as SLT that can be very helpful in controlling pressures. I personally would only use orals as a last ditch effort only if other options are not effective. Hope this helped.

When one uses drops, residual medication goes down the puncta into the nasal canaliulus into the nose, into the throat. Some take longer than others to get the taste out. Also, when NO drops are working for one's glaucoma, probably you're not getting the drop. Lots of people will take 2 or 3 eye meds to lower the pressure, and none work.

By the pharmacology of the medications, they should work some. Try this. When putting the drop in your eye, first make sure you shake the bottle if it says to do so. It might be a suspension, so you need to get the little particles all suspended within the fluid vehicle.
Pull the lower lid down of the eye...this forms a little sac. Put the drop (ONE DROP) into this little sac. If you have a startle reaction or squeeze, the drop will come out on your face. Won't work. Face drops just don't work. If you squeeze and are holding the lower lid, the medication will not be squeezed out. After the startle thing is over. Blink gently to cover the surface of the eye with the medication, then gently close your eye for 20 seconds or so. By then some of the medication between the eyelid and the eye has absorbed into the eye. Blink again, which will move more medication from the tear lake below onto the surface of the eye. Close again. Do this 3-4 times. Wait about 10 minutes or so before placing a different type of drop into the same eye. That'll give the first drop time to connect to it's target cell or area, and give it time to start working. Some recommend holding one's finger or thumb against the nose so the drop won't drain so fast. Well if you've squeezed it out onto your face....get the picture?

Before you have 'surgery', see a glaucoma specialist. This is an ophthalmologist who did a fellowship just in Glaucoma and does this all day, every day. He doesn't think he knows this stuff, he does.