I am curious if anyone suffers from recurrent iritis?
I had my first bout with iritis in May 2014, my second in August 2015, and my 3rd case was diagnosed today. I am slightly disappointed in my ophthalmologist because I had every symptom of iritis last Wed except the white blood cells in my eye so she didn't want to commit to an actual diagnosis of iritis. She decided to treat me non aggressively with only 4 steroid drops a day. The symptoms started to get better until today. It just so happened that I had an appointment with my eye surgeon for an unrelated problem this morning and when I woke up today, I knew the iritis was flared up despite the drops.
The eye surgeon quickly noted the white blood cells in my eye and called my ophthalmologist for me, who then upped the steroid drops to every 2 hours for the next 2 days.
I feel like I need to see an Ocular Immunologist and did find one in my area. I put a call in to my rheumatologist since we have been holding off on immunosuppressants so far.
Thoughts? I am not sure an Ocular Immunologist is the way to go, but I feel like they wouldn't miss a case of iritis.
So it seems that not many of you suffer from Iritis. I am having trouble tapering off the steroid drops because when I do, it causes a flare up. My eye doctor changed my drops from Pred Forte to Durezol last week with the intent to try the taper again at the end of the week. But, since my eye is still hurting and red, I doubt she will ok the taper. This happened for my last episode of iritis as well.
Just checking, are you on any meds for the PsA? Wouldn’t that help with the recurrent iritis?
Miz Que said:
So it seems that not many of you suffer from Iritis. I am having trouble tapering off the steroid drops because when I do, it causes a flare up. My eye doctor changed my drops from Pred Forte to Durezol last week with the intent to try the taper again at the end of the week. But, since my eye is still hurting and red, I doubt she will ok the taper. This happened for my last episode of iritis as well.
I am not currently on meds for PsA. At my last visit (which was one week after the Aug iritis episode), my rheumatologist said that her criteria for systemic meds is 2 episodes of iritis within 12 months. This current episode of iritis is my 2nd in four months. My ophthalmologist consulted with a colleague who is an Occular Immunologist in Chicago. The new protocol is now 3 iritis episodes in 12 months to warrant systemic meds OR difficult to treat iritis. My ophthalmologist then called my rheumatologist and they both agreed it would be best to wait and not put me on systemic meds right now.
All of my episodes of iritis have been difficult to treat, so I imagine I may be put on PsA meds the next time I see my rheumy. My eye doctor did mention that we may consider a steroid injection in my eye if this new steroid drop doesn't work before she sends me back to my rheumatologist.