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Proparacaine: uses, dosing, side effects & brands

Proparacaine is a medicine sold in the U.S. under 2 brand and generic names. Below: what the FDA label says, every product that contains it, what the pills look like, and its recall record.

By the pharmaranks editorial teamReviewed against the FDA (openFDA label, NDC Directory & Enforcement) sourcesUpdated Jul 24, 2026How we research

Key facts

Available as
Drops
Sold as
2 products — Ophthetic and Ophthaine
Prescription?
Prescription only
Generic available?
Not in our catalog
What the pharmacy pays
about $2 per ml — not your price

Every proparacaine product we track (2)

Same active ingredient — different manufacturer, form, price and FDA recall record. That last one is what our independent score measures.

Proparacaine products
#DrugRatingPharmacy pays
1
Ophthetic
72/100$2View →
2
Ophthaine
Not yet rated$2View →

Proparacaine recalls

From the FDA Enforcement database. A recall covers specific lots — not the drug as a whole.

How long proparacaine keeps

No proparacaine label we read sets a separate limit for after opening, but they do specify how it must be stored — and the stability behind any date assumes those conditions.

Does proparacaine expire? The in-use limits and storage rules from its labels

What people report to the FDA about proparacaine

The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) collects reports from patients and clinicians. It holds 248 reports naming proparacaine, and the FDA flagged 81% of those reports as serious. The effects reported most often — leaving out reports about overdose, misuse or the condition being treated, which dominate the raw list for common medicines:

  • eye pain19 reports
  • vomiting19 reports
  • abdominal distension17 reports
  • apnoea16 reports
  • feeding intolerance16 reports
  • gastric residual increased16 reports
  • vision blurred16 reports
  • nausea13 reports

Read these as a signal, not a rate. A report does not mean proparacaine caused the effect — anyone can file one, and many describe people taking several medicines for several conditions. Crucially there is no denominator: FAERS does not record how many people took the drug, so these counts cannot be turned into “X% of patients” — a bigger number often just means a more widely used or more talked-about drug. Duplicates exist, and publicity drives reporting. For what is actually established, read the FDA label section above.

Source: openFDA drug/event (FAERS), retrieved July 26, 2026.

Related calculators

How long it stays in your system →

Frequently asked questions

Can you take proparacaine with other medicines?

It depends on the medicine. We check it against the FDA labels rather than guessing: our interaction checker searches each drug's own label for the other and quotes what it says, naming the section it came from. Run proparacaine against whatever else you take — and remember that a label not naming a drug is not the same as that combination being safe.

What brand names is proparacaine sold under?

We track 2 proparacaine-containing products in the U.S.: Ophthetic and Ophthaine. They are the same active ingredient; they differ in form, manufacturer, price and FDA recall record.

What forms does proparacaine come in?

Across the brands we track, proparacaine is currently marketed as drops, per the FDA's National Drug Code Directory. Each form is dosed differently — follow the label for the exact product you were prescribed.

Is there a generic proparacaine?

We do not currently list a generic-labelled proparacaine product. That does not always mean none exists — it means none appears under a generic name in the FDA data we track. Ask your pharmacist.

Has proparacaine been recalled?

The FDA's Enforcement database lists 3 recall records whose product description mentions proparacaine. The most recent: Tropicamide-Proparacaine-Phenylephrine-Ketorolac (Jul 9, 2025). A recall applies to specific lots, not to the drug as a whole — check the record for the affected lot numbers.

Cite this page
APA
pharmaranks. (2026, July 24). Proparacaine: uses, dosing, side effects & brands. https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/proparacaine
MLA
“Proparacaine: uses, dosing, side effects & brands.” pharmaranks, 24 July 2026, https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/proparacaine.

We summarise public FDA and NIH sources — for a clinical claim, cite the primary source we link to as well.

Sources: FDA openFDA drug label, National Drug Code Directory, and Enforcement (recall) database. This page reproduces public FDA data and is not medical advice. Dosing is set by your prescriber.

Read the full FDA label for proparacaine on DailyMed (NIH) ↗.