Hello Dr Foster,
Im 22 years of age and have suffered from all 3 forms of uveitis for 9 years now. They've been a few complications along the way including cataracts in both eyes and an episode of steroid induced glaucoma that left my left eye's optic nerve heavily damaged. During these 9 years ive been on steroid eye drops once a day in both eyes and on steroids for about 7 years at a dose of 5mg a day. My doctor tried many immunesuppresents that would allow me to come off the oral steroids including cyclosporine,azathiprine and cellcept to name a few but about 2 years ago we tried prograf tacrolmus at a dose of 1mg a day and it worked!
But about 6 months ago i started to suffer from really bad neuropathy as a sideeefect so my doctor eventually took me off the prograf (so i was taking no oral medication) , hoping that maybe the disease had "burned out". It was going very well for about a month and i woke up this morning with more floaters in both eyes and a visit to the eye infirmary confirmed i had inflamation at the back of both eyes +1 along with iritis in both eyes also +1. I'll be seeing my eye doctor tomorrow so we can go about treating it but i was wondering is there any advice or ideas you can please give me that i can bring up ?
Ive seen a uveitis specialist a few times , whom i found on this site, Dr Phillip I Murray U.K, even he has said he would not have done anything different to the doctor that has been treating me all these years.
Generally speaking does uveitis "burn out" and leave a patient drug free? or is the best i can hope for just being on immunesuppresents for the rest of my time?
Thankyou.
Im 22 years of age and have suffered from all 3 forms of uveitis for 9 years now. They've been a few complications along the way including cataracts in both eyes and an episode of steroid induced glaucoma that left my left eye's optic nerve heavily damaged. During these 9 years ive been on steroid eye drops once a day in both eyes and on steroids for about 7 years at a dose of 5mg a day. My doctor tried many immunesuppresents that would allow me to come off the oral steroids including cyclosporine,azathiprine and cellcept to name a few but about 2 years ago we tried prograf tacrolmus at a dose of 1mg a day and it worked!
But about 6 months ago i started to suffer from really bad neuropathy as a sideeefect so my doctor eventually took me off the prograf (so i was taking no oral medication) , hoping that maybe the disease had "burned out". It was going very well for about a month and i woke up this morning with more floaters in both eyes and a visit to the eye infirmary confirmed i had inflamation at the back of both eyes +1 along with iritis in both eyes also +1. I'll be seeing my eye doctor tomorrow so we can go about treating it but i was wondering is there any advice or ideas you can please give me that i can bring up ?
Ive seen a uveitis specialist a few times , whom i found on this site, Dr Phillip I Murray U.K, even he has said he would not have done anything different to the doctor that has been treating me all these years.
Generally speaking does uveitis "burn out" and leave a patient drug free? or is the best i can hope for just being on immunesuppresents for the rest of my time?
Thankyou.
