New to message board from WI

[mlynndcats]

It is great to know I am not the only one with this disease. I live in a little town in Wisconsin and everyone I know has never heard of Uvietis.

My experience starts two years ago on Memorial Day. I woke up with my right eye very red, extremely painful, light sensitive and my vision decreased. Being a holiday I ended up in the ER. They said it was Conjuntivitis and sent me home with Ketotifen. After a week it wasn't any better, so I saw my regular doctor. He gave me Patanol. After 5 days and it still was not getting better, I realized I needed to see a true eye doctor. By this time the vision in my right eye was gone, all I saw was a big cloud of white. When I saw Dr. Ames he realized it was a far greater problem. He had never seen Uveitis before me, but he was very professional, did his research and contacted other doctors to confirm his recommendations. I was put on PredForte EVERY hour and I mean every hour. I had to wake up every hour during the night. This lasted one whole exausting week. Finally, my vision was starting to come back in my right eye. He reduced it to every two waking hours. I did that for another week and saw a retina specialist just to make sure none had spread, thankfully it had not. It took another two months before I was tapered off the drops. I had all kinds of blood work and xrays and everything came back normal.

Then January this year, I woke up with the inside corner of my right eye extremely red and very painful with light sensitivity. I thought oh no, it's back! But suprise, it wasn't uveitis it was episclarits. Back on PredForte for a week before it was gone.

Then on March 17 my left eye was getting red on the outide corner, painful and sensitive to light. Yep, got episclaris again, but in opposite eye. Back on PredForte and NSAIDs for a week before this was gone.

Three days later... I woke up with pain in BOTH eyes. My left eye very red, my right only lightly red. I was extremely light sensitive. I called Dr. Ames, but he was out of town at a seminar, so I saw a colleage Dr. Melchert. She saw me right away. Suprise, I had iritis in BOTH eyes. Back on steroid drops. After one week my right eye was all clear, but my left was still red, my vision was decreased and I was still light sensitive. Oh, I now have floaters too. I had to change the setting on my monitor so it's not so bright. I went though more blood tesiting and xrays - still normal. I am still on drops three times a day and will see Dr. Ames on Monday. Hopefully it will be back to normal soon.

[Mike Bartolatz]

welcome to the group!
there is a specialist there in Wisconsin, DR Neal Barney that I suggest you contact right away. your uveitis sounds more than a typical no thing related type of situation. more than just iritis is present, episcleritis is also present and often a connective tissue disease process can be linked. DR Barney is the best ocular immunologist in your state with extensive training in what causes uveitis and he also knows how to employ more than just corticosteroids in the treatment of it/

his contact information can be found at http://www.uveitis.org in the PATIENT information section of the site on the SPECIALIST list.
Please join us in our GENERAL discussion forum for further questions and comments. click on BOARD INDEX in the top left corner of this page and you will be redirected to our varous forums. then start a new thread or comment on another existing topic. NOTHING IS TOO TRIVIAL TO ASK by the way. Please know that you are not alone!

Wishing you the very best,
mike Bartolatz