Time to Heal

[Carrie]

I am only 27 and I was diagnosed with iritis in both eyes 6 weeks ago. My eye doctor put me on prednisolone eye drops, but it hasn't gone away yet. I read on webmd that it can commonly take 8 weeks to go away. Reading the stories on this website made me more scared than I was before. My eye doctor told me that some people get rid of the inflammation and it never comes back. He also said that with timely treatment there usually isn't vision loss. My family doctor sent me to get a blood test for sedimentation rate to rule out autoimmune diseases and he said it came back ok. Should I just be waiting to see if the eye drops work, or is it too soon to see a specialist who might be more aggressive in blood tests or other forms of therapy?

[Mike Bartolatz]

I know you are experiencing allot of anxiety from this dreadful hand of cards you have been dealt. I'm not a doctor so all I can do is try to calm you a bit. YEs your doctor is correct that Iritis can be a one off occurance. if it is unresponsive to the dose of steroids eye drops you are on he MAY decide to put you on a course of oral steroids or event steroid injections to tissue SURROUNDING the eye (not into the eye for inflammation). This MAY NOT occur but if it does know that many people have also had to go this route to control the inflammation. if the uveitis continues to be difficult to treat and is recurrent or chronic then it would be time to seek guidance from an EXPERT in the diagnosis and treatment of uveitis; preferrably one who is fellowship level trained in Ocular Inflammatory Disease.

Know you aren't alone and we are here to help you in any way we can. Take a couple of deep breaths and try to lower your stress as Stress can make your uveitis much more difficult to control and Stress seems to be able to cause it to return for many of us.

I hope this helps!
Sincerely,
Mike Bartolatz