A BINGLEY woman who underwent surgery to correct her vision and remove cataracts has been left with a positive side effect of the post-op eye drops - a dramatic improvement in her arthritis.

As well as struggling with her eyesight, 70-year-old Christine Willey, has suffered with pains in her back, pelvic area, feet and hands through arthritis for the past ten years.

Little did she realise that her eye treatment would go on to help with that problem too.

She said: "So many of my hobbies rely on excellent vision and I was getting so fed up with varifocal glasses and with blurry vision from cataracts. I had worn contact lenses for about 30 years, but my eyes became too dry to tolerate them.

"I was delighted to find out I was suitable for Clarivu, a chance to correct my vision and get rid of my cataracts in one go. However, within two days of taking the eye drops following the procedure, I noticed that all my normal aches and pains had disappeared Before my eye surgery I was feeling like a creaky old woman, and was even struggling to get up the stairs.

"I could not believe it – it seems that one of the eye drops contains a mild steroid, which has not only worked on my eyes, but also on my arthritis. There has been a massive improvement in my symptoms ever since."

Consultant ophthalmic surgeon Shafiq Rehman, of Optegra Yorkshire Eye Hospital in Apperley Bridge, Bradford, said: "Mrs Willey's was a very interesting case as her eyes had many different challenges from being both short and long sighted, to astigmatism, dry eyes and cataracts.

"While Clarivu was the ideal solution for her, we had not anticipated the fantastic outcome in terms of her arthritis also.

"The post-op eye drop regime led to a remarkable improvement in her arthritis symptoms. She had been really struggling before hand, and so we have now informed her GP that even the ultra-low low dose of corticosteroid in our standard eye-drop regime appears to have had a major positive impact in her arthritis, we hope that this could open up other avenues of arthritis control for Mrs Willey in the future".

A retired modern languages teacher, Mrs Willey is now able to enjoy her hobbies anew - from watercolour painting, to sewing, reading, wildlife watching and photography.