I'm over this

[emily1984]

Hello my fellow iritis suffers! I'm so sick of having this and so frustrated so I finally decided to find a place to vent. Here's my story- I'm 25 years old right now and my first episode started in 2004. I remember it was valentines day and I couldn't stand any type of light, so all I wanted to do was be in the dark. My horrible boyfriend at the time wouldn't stay with me and instead went to party with his friends. I didn't know I had iritis I thought I had pink eye. I let it go until I couldn't stand the pain anymore and I finally saw a doctor. I had to get an injection in my eye and was put on predforte and diallating drops. I can't remember how long that episode lasted, but I've gotten iritis ever since then every year around the same time and always in my right eye. This current episode I've had since May 11, 2010 (Today is September 30th). I was on a high dose of prednisone, but thankfully am off of the steroids for now (they make me sick, make me gain weight, I get the moon face, leg cramps, teeth sensitivity, hair growth, every side effect pretty much). The frustrating part is that my eye will clear up and I start tapering off the drops (very slowly, like 7 drops a day for 2 weeks and then 6 for 2 weeks, ect) and then it keeps coming back. Last Friday I felt my left eye feeling like it had iritis, sure enough it does. So after treating my right eye for 5 months I now have to treat my left eye. I'm now putting Durezol drops in my left eye every 15 minutes, which is so hard to remember, and putting predforte drops in my right eye 8 times a day (for now, if it flares up again like it did 2 days ago then it's back to putting them in more frequently). This is the worst episode I've had so far and it seems like there is no end in sight. I keep telling myself that it could be worse, I could have gone blind from this, or I could have a disease that is untreatable and worse, but it's still so hard. Especially being young and not knowing anyone my age that has to deal with this. I do know that I have the genetic marker for this and it seems to be brought on by stress. I also hate that durazol is $100 for such a tiny bottle. Luckily my parents are helping me financially right now because I was just laid off my job a month ago and don't have anyway to pay for the weekly doctor visits and expensive durazol. Thanks for letting me vent my frustration on here, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one suffering from this. I hope that more will be know about iritis in the future and there will be more ways to treat it.

[Mike Bartolatz]

Welcome to the group!
if you have the HLA B27 gene, then you might ask your doctor to prescribe a Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory medication at PRESCRIPTION strength for Six months to see if it can break the recurrent nature of your autoimmune uveitis. the generic drug Difusinal or Naprosyn might do the trick. if your eyes can achieve the goal of off all steroids without inflammation, then you would continue until you are off all steroids for two years, then the dose would be halved for six months and then you would stop the NSAID,
Durezol isn't a long term drug as it can cause cataracts and elevated pressures inside your eyes. with the HLA B27 related uveitis it can ping pong between eyes too.
there is a note about Durezol from the manufacturer where you can get a bit of the cost of the drug paid for in an anouncement at the top of the general discussion forum
please join us there and we can help you through this.

wishing you the very best,
Mike Bartolatz