Just an introduction

[DAMNMS]

I had my first diagnosis about 8 years ago and was iritis free until about 4 months ago. Since then I've had 4 flare ups and the doctors I've seen basically say there really isn't a cause as long as I've done the blood work to rule out all of the auto-immune diseases, but I want to do what I can to try and thwart off this junk before it becomes a lifestyle. Is my best bet to find a ocular specialist or see if I can get a physician like my internist to take up the cause? If I need a specialist, where do I find one "close" to Jackson, MS? This last flare up came out of nowhere on Wednesday evening and I've been doing one steroid drop every 3 hours and it seems to be close to gone which is much better than the injections I've gotten in past occurances, but I'm starting to get scared for my health.

Because I was sure the best way to address your questions, I decided I'd repost my introduction since I obviously left some things out. I would ask either of my two physicians, but I'm sure I'd get a blank stare so based on the symptoms I found distinguishing the two, I would say my iritis has been non granulomatous because of the stronger sensitivity to light and lack of tearing. Although my initial case in April and the subsequent flare up that occurred while I was still weening off of the steroids were severe enough to need injections, the other flare ups have been mild and pretty much resolved by the second day of drops. My mother does have the non relapsing remitting form of MS and although it isn't a disease, I do have a spinal cord injury which could make dianosing some of the diseases more difficult because the symptoms will be hard to distinguish. I have not been tested for the HLA B27 gene, but will definitely start there.

Thanks.

Danny

[Mike Bartolatz]

It may well be time to explore other treatment options as well as getting an Ocular Immunologist involved in your care. some markers such as ANA can take decades to show the actual cause of a disease process. for this reason they are repeated by ocular immunologists. sometimes knowing the underlying cause can help select medications to use to treat. one can also get iritis from one cause, treat it and have it go away. then years later once can have exposure to a different triggering mechanism and the iritis is back again and it could take entirely different meds to treat it.
have you been tested for the HLA B27 gene frequently seen in iritis and other forms of uveitis?

do systemic disease processes 'run in your family'?

the closest ocular immunologist to you would be DR Russel Read at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. his contact information can be found at http://www.uveitis.org in the PATIENT information section of the site. I wish someone were closer to you but often we have to travel some distance to get the care we deserve from true experts rather than doctors that think they are expert in everything.

internal medicine specialst probably have no clue as to what might cause or treat irtis. they cannot diagnose it as they don't have a slit lamp microscope required to find the cells inside the eyes. they probably have never heard of the causes either. if you read deeply here, you will know more than 95% of all doctors about the things linked to uveitis as well as MODERN treatment for it and it's underlying causes. FYI, there are over 95 different things linke to uveitis and you have not been tested for everything possible for your possible links.

Is your uveitis granulomatus or non granulomatus?

Take care,
mike