2nd Round of Iritis - HLA-B27 Positive

[OuchMyEye]

Hi All,

I, 31 year old male, just recently (New Year's Eve) got my second case of iritis, my first one was in March of 2012 and I was told this was probably idiopathic and would not occur again. It took about a month back then for my first case to go away (prednisone and dilating drops) and didn't seem to affect my vivions at all once everything cleared up.
This second one has been rougher, it seemed to be getting much better last week but just flared up again this weekend as I was getting down to prednisone drops every 3 hours. My opthalmologist had me do some blood work and I did come back as being HLA-B27 positive. Nobody else in my family has ever had iritis so this was a little surprising. I've never had any back pain or stomach issues so far either.

After being told about this diagnosis, I did some research online and found this site and particularly the mention of getting away from steroids and using NSAIDs to control recurrences of iritis. When I mentioned this to my opthalmologist, she decided to try me on 50mg of indomethacin/ 3x daily as well as 1 20mg tablet of prilosec/day to protect the stomach, whilst continuing the prednisone at every 2 hours and a dilating drop "scopolamin" once/daily. I have found myself being quite drowsy as a result.

I live in Orlando, FL and while I think my doctor is doing the best he can, I would like to find someone who deals with iritis related to auto-immune disease more regularly. My doctor seems to think this will be a regular occurrence and steroids/dilating drops and eventually surgery for cataracts is the solution?

Any advice/comments would be appreciated. I feel this disease is a big annoyance but am worried that it could get even worse. Especially as a father of two young children, I worry that they may get this someday, too?

Thanks and good luck to all fellow sufferers.

[Mike Bartolatz]

The closest specialists to you are DR Janet Davis and DR Victor Perez at Bascom Palmer eye institute in Miami, they also go to other cites in Florida from time to time. their contact information can be found on the SPECIALIST list at http://www.uveitis.org located in the PATIENT information section of the site. SEE ONLY THESE DOCTORS IN FLORIDA as others on the list do not employ a corticosteroid sparing approach to treatment. teh best NSAIDS to try for SIX MONTHS are Celebrex, Dolobid or Naprosyn given at prescription strenght. if they have not stoppe the cycle of re occurance by this amount of time or your cannot get of steroids as well, then it would be time to move on to Methotrexate, cellcept or Imuran. DR Foster the top ocular immunlologist in the World has about a 70% success rate with one of these meds in HLA B27 related iritis patients. Indomethacin has also been used successfully at prescription strength. make sure that after about 4 weeks on them that you start a VERY SLOW taper off of the steroid eyedrops. hopefully this will stop your iritis from returning.

Wish you the very best,
mike