Recurring Iritis

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rogerwhitson
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2016 8:31 am

Recurring Iritis

Post by rogerwhitson »

Hi all,

I was diagnosed with uveitis in 2013, and had what I thought was episcleritis for years before that.

My symptoms are mostly well managed with Humira, which I take weekly for a variety of conditions in addition to the uveitis. I tend to get a flare-up once every year and a half or so, so I count myself mostly lucky at this point with the disease. I am HBLA-27 positive, so no doubt that's where all of this comes from. I heard about the NSAID treatment, but have Crohns, so I don't know how that would impact my GI issues.

Recently, I've had some extremely minor symptoms of uveitis for about a week and a half. I'm going to my eye doctor later on today, but I basically have minor redness (it's actually more pink than red) in one area of my eye. I've had some of the focusing pain that people have mentioned and no photophobia. But I have no pain right now. The symptoms are so minor that I've been constantly questioning whether I should go to the doctor. It's been bad enough for me to be alarmed, but not quite bad enough for me to actually go to the doctor. guh.

It's just really frustrating. I feel like the disease is playing tricks with me, and I honestly wish it would either happen already or leave me alone. Of course the latter is preferable. I'm going to the eye doctor in a couple of hours and we'll determine what to do. Maybe some of this has to do with the Humira working mostly but not entirely to control the disease. And I know I'm really lucky to not have worse symptoms, so I feel strange writing about this on a message board where others are dealing with much worse problems.

But largely, I want to know how you manage your anxiety about the disease. My anxiety has been flaring recently for a number of reasons, but I definitely obsess too much about my eye. To be sure, it's important to get prompt treatment, but I just wish I could be more rational about the disease. Any thoughts would help.
kwork
Posts: 47
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2004 12:30 pm

Re: Recurring Iritis

Post by kwork »

It's the Humira that is probably doing the best it can at keeping the flareups down. It worked extremely well for me. I didn't have any flareups the time I was on it. It slowly stopped working for me and had to change medications. The anxiety is a cycle you should work to break. The anxiety can actually cause the auto immune problems not the other way around. I know this isn't easy to do, but eat right, exercise the best you can and do the things that ease your mind of the anxiety.

The next time you have anxiety remind yourself that worrying about something is a bad use of imagination. =)

-Kevin
Iritis.org Administrator
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