A Fellow Sufferer

[bender]

Hello everybody! My name is Kyle and I was diagnosed with uveitis in early 2010. Since then I've had
four flareups with the fourth happening about a week ago. It's been the most severe by far, with my iris
starting to stick to my lens within 12 hours of the onset of redness/pain. I decided to self-medicate
with Pred Forte during the night, but it wasn't enough to prevent having seriously cloudy/hazy/blurry
vision the next morning. With my previous 3 bouts of uveitis I had always gotten somewhat blurry vision
but it had always cleared up once I had finished with my Pred Forte drops. Getting cloudy vision was a
new experience and a very unnerving one at that since my job depends on my vision! Thankfully with the
use of Cyclopentolate (dilation) and Pred Forte my iris became unstuck and I have just blurry vision
instead of cloudy. My eye doctor is great as she both 1)immediately diagnosed me correctly with uveitis
during the first attack and 2)demanded that I go see a rheumatologist after the second. I've had several
blood tests done with no abnormal findings, and I am HLA B27 negative. The only link to an autoimmune
disease in my family is an aunt who has systemic lupus. My doctor has started me on 15 mg/weekly of
methotrexate for a 6 month trial. The only reservation I have at this point is that my wife and I were
planning on starting a family this year, and I was not informed that methotrexate can cause serious birth
defects and is not even safe for the male to be on if trying to have children. Obviously I will be
discussing with my doc our options on other drugs we can try that don't have the potential for serious
birth defects, perhaps a NSAID instead of DMARD? From reading the forums it seems like my treatment has
been following the recommended path so far which is great news. Thanks for reading and I'll keep you
updated on my progress.

Kyle

[Mike Bartolatz]

it sounds like your opthalmologist is a good one since he is willing to take on treatment with DMARD drugs for autoimmune uveitis.
your current flare up of uveitis might indicate that more is going on than just iritis. did your doctor mention any 'snowballs' or Snowbanks upon slit lamp exam with a hand held magnifying glass to look just behind the iris? did me mention FLARE which is protein in the vitreous humor causing foggy vision along with cells which form opacities in the vitreous?
It might not be appropriate to use NSAIDs and only an expert can advise on this even though the 'next step' is often the use of oral NSAIDs in step ladder approach to treatment of anterior uveitis especially since SLE is a possible consideration for diagnosis.
did they test you for antibodies, ANA tests? did they test for anti RO (SSA), anti LA (SSB), Smith antibody Kidney tests as
SLE often causes Kidney disease?
did they mention changes to the retina or optic nerve as SLE can cause problems with the posterior segment. this is sometimes related to new blood vessel growth or Cystoid Macular Edema? did they do A fluorescein Angiogram ( photgraphs of the retina with Dyes) ? did they do an Optical Coherence Tomography test and Visual fields test to look for retina problems? What is the pressure reading of your eyes? was Glaucoma mentioned from steroid use or from cells blocking the 'angles' ?

is your uveitis granulomatus in nature?

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wishing you the very best,
mike