Hello Dr. Foster,
I'm 24 years old and have had chronic iritis for 15 years. My eye doctor would always treat it with pred forte and run a few blood tests, which would not reveal anything abnormal. Since the age of 9, I would get an iritis flareup for a year or two and then recover for another year or two before it would come back again. During high school, I was actually iritis free for 3-4 years.
More recently - from the age of 22-24 I have had a trace amount of iritis in both eyes. From age 22-23, it was treated with pred forte. There was a spike in my eye pressure (it reached about 20 in both eyes) and I felt that it was time to seek a different treatment, since pred forte can increase eye pressure and was not getting rid of the inflammation, and for fear of using corticosteroids on and off for so long. For the past year, I've been seeing a new doctor and was instructed to taper off the pred forte and take 500 mg of diflunisal twice a day. My iritis has remained at trace most of the year (sometimes 0.5).
However, I recently saw yet another new doctor a week ago as an emergency because I woke up with extremely red eyes. He said that I had 1+ in the left eye, and trace in the right eye. He urgently recommended that I immediately use pred forte, since the diflunisal clearly was not remedying the iritis. I went back to the doctor I usually see, and he said that I had a trace amount of inflammation in both eyes and to continue with the diflunisal. He also said that I have "inactive" iritis. What exactly does this mean?
I'm at a loss for what I should do at this point. From some of your articles, it seems that your stance is zero tolerance for any inflammation. The diflunisal isn't working so should I start to use the pred forte again? Is a trace amount of inflammation dangerous to tolerate in my case? What would you recommend that I do?
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
-Julie
I'm 24 years old and have had chronic iritis for 15 years. My eye doctor would always treat it with pred forte and run a few blood tests, which would not reveal anything abnormal. Since the age of 9, I would get an iritis flareup for a year or two and then recover for another year or two before it would come back again. During high school, I was actually iritis free for 3-4 years.
More recently - from the age of 22-24 I have had a trace amount of iritis in both eyes. From age 22-23, it was treated with pred forte. There was a spike in my eye pressure (it reached about 20 in both eyes) and I felt that it was time to seek a different treatment, since pred forte can increase eye pressure and was not getting rid of the inflammation, and for fear of using corticosteroids on and off for so long. For the past year, I've been seeing a new doctor and was instructed to taper off the pred forte and take 500 mg of diflunisal twice a day. My iritis has remained at trace most of the year (sometimes 0.5).
However, I recently saw yet another new doctor a week ago as an emergency because I woke up with extremely red eyes. He said that I had 1+ in the left eye, and trace in the right eye. He urgently recommended that I immediately use pred forte, since the diflunisal clearly was not remedying the iritis. I went back to the doctor I usually see, and he said that I had a trace amount of inflammation in both eyes and to continue with the diflunisal. He also said that I have "inactive" iritis. What exactly does this mean?
I'm at a loss for what I should do at this point. From some of your articles, it seems that your stance is zero tolerance for any inflammation. The diflunisal isn't working so should I start to use the pred forte again? Is a trace amount of inflammation dangerous to tolerate in my case? What would you recommend that I do?
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
-Julie
