iritis & proptosis

[dielayoung]

hi there,

I am Adiela, 21 years old from Malaysia.I am suffering from idiopathic iritis on left eye since 2 years ago. My problem is when my doctor reduce the dose to the twice daily, and after a month for follow-up, i will have flare up. Even when the doctor declared that mine have go down and i can stop the predforte, after about 2 weeks, i had flare up. Plus, i began to feel that my left eye is bulging out, not so obvious like in thyrotoxicosis but enough to make me lack of self-esteem. The doctor also told me that my cup-disk ratio is about 0.7 for both eyes which explain my near-sightedness and worry of increase IOP but so far my IOP is normal.Now, i am studying in Egypt, where lack of facilities to do follow-up as they only check mine only by using slit-lamp,no further examination which is way far differed from Malaysia hospital. So, can you suggest anything relating to my condition as i am very worried of sclera thinning side effect of predforte.

thank you.

[Mike Bartolatz]

have you been checked for thyroid disease or has an ultrasound been done to look for problems behind your eye which could cause the bulging eye?
are you HLA B27 positive?
have you tried Non steroidal anti inflammatory medications to see if they can break the recurrent/chronic nature of your iritis?
there is a list of specialists at http://www.uveitis.org located in the Patient information section of the site. you will most likely have to do some travel to get evaluation.

Dr Foster here in the USA, the top ocular immunologist in the World, uses the NSAIDs Celebrex, Difusinal and Naprosyn. if your iritis doesn't respond to NSAID therapy within about six months, then it would be time to do additional testing for autoimmune diseases and pathogens related to iritis and perhaps move on to other treatment options besides just corticosteroids.

Wish you the very best,
Mike