Frequent Questions
The Drug and Poison Information Center (DPIC), located at Children's Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati, produces a newsletter called DrugScope. This newsletter provides timely information about drugs and related issues.
A social worker called requesting information on retrobulbar neuritis, with which her friend was recently diagnosed. The caller was also wondering if this disorder could be related to cocaine use four to five year's prior.
Retrobulbar neuritis, also known as optic neuritis, is defined as inflammation or degeneration of the optic nerve or destruction of its protective coating.
The main symptom is a sudden loss of vision in one or both eyes. Impaired color vision, painful eye movements, or a decrease in the total area seen may also occur. Patients usually recover vision within three to six weeks. Within 10 to 15 years, a large percentage (more than 50%) of patients develop multiple sclerosis, a disease caused by slow destruction of nerve coatings and characterized by fluctuating periods of muscle weakness.
In many of the remaining cases of optic neuritis the cause is unknown. However, optic neuritis has also been associated with high blood pressure, overactive thyroid, infections, cancer and sinus inflammation. Poisoning from lead, arsenic and methanol (wood alcohol) have also been known to cause this problem.
The medical literature reports five cases of optic neuritis in active cocaine users. All five patients had inflammation of the sinuses and tissues near the optic nerve. Information on optic neuritis in previous cocaine users is lacking. The chance that this case is exclusively due to a history of cocaine use is slim.
The principal of a local middle school called requesting information of the contents of automobile fuses. She had been told by one of her students that kids at the school were breaking open the fuses and inhaling the contents to get high.
No information about the contents of fuses was available at the DPIC, nor was the staff familiar with this practice. A call was made to the manufacturer of the fuses. The company representative confirmed that there were no gases of any kind inside the fuses - there was "nothing but air." The information was passed on to the principal.
