PERSONAL HEALTH : HEALTH WATCH : Sleeping Sickness

If you want to cut the risk of corneal damage by up to 74%, remove your contact lenses before going to sleep. Johns Hopkins University researcher Oliver Schein says sleeping with contact lenses is the leading culprit for ulcerative keratitis, a condition caused by an infection with bacteria or other germs. It produces a destructive inflammation of the cornea.

The study by Schein and other researchers showed that users of disposable soft contact lenses, which can be worn for up to two weeks without removal, were 13 times more likely to suffer ulcerative keratitis than those who removed their soft contacts regularly for cleaning. But when researchers adjusted for overnight wear, the risk of developing ulcerative keratitis with disposables dropped to three times higher than other lenses. “The main point is that most of the risk is due to overnight wear, not lens type,” Schein said.

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Wait and See: Surgery to relieve trouble caused by an enlarged prostate is done too often and treatment instead should be determined by the patient’s level of discomfort, according to the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. Often, the best treatment is to just monitor the condition, the government panel concluded.

“Watchful waiting is not the same as benign neglect,” said panel chairman John D. McConnell of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

According to guidelines issued recently by the group of specialists, some patients are routinely treated with surgery when less intense therapies could relieve their symptoms. The panel recommended strongly that in any cases where the patient is not especially troubled by symptoms, treatment be postponed indefinitely and a period of “watchful waiting” be instituted.

For a free copy of the panel’s guidelines, call (800) 358-9295 or write to BPH Guidelines, P.O. Box 8547, Silver Spring, Md. 20907.

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Foot Rest: According to the American Podiatric Medical Assn., the average American takes about 10,000 steps every day, subjecting feet to a force equal to several hundred tons.

Help is on the way in the form of 25 free brochures on foot-care topics ranging from On-the-Job Foot Health to Aerobics and Your Feet. Call APMA at (800) 366-8227.

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This health roundup, compiled from wire-service reports, appears in View on Tuesdays.