I really need guidance!

[kaylbee]

I first had a flare up of iritis in Oct '04. Went from Dr. to Dr. and finally ended up at a "so-called" specialist. All they ever did was give me Pred-forte drops and increase or decrease depending on the flare-ups. This was basically the treatment until Feb'06 when I woke up one morning and most of my sight was gone from my left eye (which was the one that was causing the problem). The doctors sent me to another "specialist" this time-- a optic nerve guy. They put me on oral steriods which did absolutely nothing but make me gain 50 pnds and make me "crazy". They finally concluded that my optic nerve was damaged to the point of no return, and they could do nothing else to regain that sight in my left eye. I learned to live with it, I mean, I had a good right eye!! Fast forward to Oct '09. My right eye started flaring up. I didn't want to believe it, but knew it was a flare up. I called the Dr.-- who confirmed the iritis in my used to be good eye. Since then I have been a ball of nerves. Mainly because when I think of iritis, I think of losing my sight. I have been very proactive with this new "iritis specialist" but he seems to be sooo smart he forgets his bedside manner. And he also seems to forget who I am and what is wrong everytime I come in. I understand he has alot of patients, but I could lose my sight! They did all the tests in "04 and '05, and mri, chest x-rays, blood tests, etc. nothing was found. I have pushed the issue with the Dr. because I would like to know why this is happening again, and why I lost my sight in the left eye to begin with. He is wanting to put me on the "low-dose chemo" drug. This is without knowing the cause. Is this normal? I am currently taking 4-6 drops of pred-forte again. Which I fill is just a bandaid, and believe I need the dr's to be more aggresive, since last time I woke up with no sight after 1 1/2 years of iritis. Help!! What do I do? Do I need to seek another opinion, if so, where? I live in Winston-Salem, NC. I am willing to travel if need be. I wake up every morning, and thank God I have sight that day, but I do not know what tomorrow will bring. Thank you and I apologize for the lengthy story!!

[Mike Bartolatz]

please contact DR Glenn Jaffe at Duke, he is the closest ocular immunologist to you. try to indicate the severity of your case and that you have already lost vision in one eye due to optic nerve damage from uveitis.
this is quite unusual for it to quickly cause optic nerve damage. there are several autoimmune disease process and pathogens that can cause this to occur. the Ocular immunologist knows about these things whereas the regular opthalmologist most likely will not.
when related to just about any autoimmune disease process, the chemotherapeutic drugs such as low dose methotrexate are employed to retrain the immune system to stop attacking the eyes. it is assumed that when a pathogen isn't involved with iritis/uveitis it is autoimmune in nature. how the inside of your eye appears can also indicate to the ocular immunologist a possible cause.
the SPECIALIST located in the PATIENT INFORMATION section of http://www.uveitis.org has contact information for Dr Jaffe.

We are here to help you through this and Please know that you are not alone!

wishing you the very best,
Mike Bartolatz