“Is stopping restasis considered to be dangerous?”

It depends on the cause of your redness and itching. Visit your ophthalmologist for specific diagnosis.

It’s ok to stop restasis anytime you are concerned over side effects.

It's not dangerous to stop Restasis. You may stop it as long as you need and restart when you are comfortable to do so.

It is not harmful to stop restasis, particularly if you are experiencing an increase in eye irritation and will be using some other medications. The anti-inflammatory effects of restasis will continue for a few weeks after stopping the drops. You should be able to re-start the restasis if your eyes found it beneficial. But the anti-inflammatory effects may take a few weeks to build back up.

Omar E. Awad, MD, FACS

Restasis increases tear flow by minimizing (treating) inflammation that lowers tear flow. Stopping its use might diminish your tear flow if the underlying cause of inflammation is still present, but it might actually demonstrate that the inflammation is gone due to no change in the tear flow when stopped. There are no other observable effects from stopping the Restasis and there are plenty of alternatives if the tear flow diminishes when you stop this product. You may safely stop Restasis and will not get into any trouble by this stoppage.

If you are using it for dry eye, you may have some worsening of your dryness, but you may discontinue if needed.

It is not dangerous to stop restasis for a while. In fact it is recommended.

Yes, safe to stop

Yes, it is safe to stop restasis. However, the benefit you may have been getting from restasis will decrease when you stop it. You may have to use artificial tears more frequently.

Temporary cessation causes no problem

So far as I know, there are no dangers to stopping Restasis. The eye may get redder, since Res. is an anti-inflammatory.
On the other hand, if you are allergic to Res., it may make your eye redder when you restart it.

It is not dangerous to stop Restasis but you should check with your eye care provider.

Stopping restasis should not have any untoward effects other than reverting to your old tear insufficiency (dry eye) symptoms. Seek out an eye MD such as myself, a medical/surgical eye physician to advise you regarding this new red and irritated left eye.

A common misconception about Restasis (and Xiidra which works similarly) is that they are interchangeable with other dry eye treatments. These are the only non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications for the treatment of dry eye due to inflammation. They are not artificial tears and they are not meant to 'soothe' the eye. They are prescriptions medications.

Restasis works by blocking the white blood cells which are involved in inflammatory dry eye disease. Since these cells have about a 90-day lifespan, it can take anywhere from 3 months to 6 months for Restasis to reach a therapeutic level. Sometimes when patients tell me that they tried Restasis and "it didn't work" they were usually not on it long enough for it to count.

Likewise, if you stop Restasis, it might take a month or longer before you know for sure if the effect has worn off.

If you have been on it for years without a problem and now you have an issue with one of the eyes, Restasis is unlikely to be the culprit. But your eye doctor should review what other medications you are on. Again, it is unlikely that you are on something comparable to Restasis already so I would be hesitant to just stop it without doing some investigating as to the cause of your symptoms.

It is also possible that despite being on Restasis that your dry eye disease is nevertheless progressing. There are many contributing factors to dry eye including auto-immune diseases, diet, environment, skin type, genetics, other drug side effects, to name a few. Restasis alone might be insufficient to counteract these other causes.

To answer your question, yes it is safe to stop Restasis. But if your symptoms worsen - and this might not happen for several weeks - and you need to go back on Restasis, just be aware that you will have to start all over again as it can take several months to reach a therapeutic level again.

Yes, you can stop restasis and you need to figure out what is the cause. Restasis suppresses immunity and can cause an infection. Restasis needs to be stopped if there is infection.