New to Iritis and curious

[Eyeslegs]

Hi All,

I have been reading a lot of great info on this forum and have come to realise that this is a great resource, so I thought I would join and ask some questions of my own. I'm not a very good forum person to be honest, since I work full time still and have disabilities to deal with and don't have much time to chip in but I will do my best to contribute.

Firstly, I have Multiple Sclerosis (MS), I was diagnosed with definite MS 5 years ago, although I had probably MS in 2003 and my first bout of Optic Neuritis in 1992. I would have been diagnosed much earlier had I had access to a good neurologist, and this last comment is what has led to my question below.

My main question is that I have just had my first bout of Iritis in the same eye that I had Optic Neuritis twice and actually totally lost my sight at the time of the ON for several weeks. I was also diagnosed with Convergence Disorder caused by the MS. When I was diagnosed with Iritis the Opthamologist said that he was not going to test for anything else since I had MS and I must be in an inflammatory stage of the MS which had caused the Iritis. My MS Nurse laughed when I told her and said they blame everything on MS once your diagnosed.

So next time I saw the opthamologist I told him of her reaction and he said, well she's a nurse, not a neurologist, maybe she doesn't know and you need to educate her. so I tried to tell her but she still insisted that no way was my Iritis related to the MS. So I asked my GP about this and he was astonished saying of course it is your MS, it's well documented. So he wrote to my neurologist to say so, my neurologist replied saying that the only the only type of Uveitis related to MS was Pars Planitis and no way was my Iritis related to the MS excepting that it was another inflammatory process.

Both me and my GP are confused and I have totally lost faith in my MS team. The research I have been able to find on this has been scanty and I am not sure how to approach this now as the MS team should be taking note of this relationship and documenting it in my records.

Can you offer any advice please? I would be very grateful of any definite research links on his too.

Thanks Pat

[Mike Bartolatz]

any form of uveitis is DIRECTLY linked to MS. genes found in both conditions cause the inflammation present. anterior uveitis frequently occurrs as does posterior uveitis and Pan uveitis with inflammation throughout the eye. usually neovascualrization of the retina is more common in MS as is optic neuritis. overheating of nerves causes the temporary white out. this is called Uhthoff's sign or uhthoff's symptoms in MS. it can also impact legs for a couple of weeks too.
It amazes me how people get their heads stuck in old text books and continue to give patients erroneous information.
it is like asking which comes first, the chicken or the egg. often uveitis can preceed a given autoimmune disease by a decade or more or vice versa.
the main thing is to get an OCULAR IMMUNOLGIST involved early on to help prevent blinding consequences of a corticosteroid only approach to treatment. there is a list of these rare specialists available through the Ocular Immunology and Uveitis Foundation website http://www.uveitis.org in the PATIENT information section of the site. there is also a forum where you can ASK DR FOSTER A question forum. I suggest you ask this question of him. he is the TOP ocular Immunologist in the World. I also moderate forums for the Foundation. there is a lot of information at http://www.parsplanitis.org that you can read through on this topic.

I hope this helps,
Mike