My four year old daughter has pauciarticular extended juvenile arthritis (at 5 joints now) and was diagnosed with iritis in one eye less than two months ago.
We had been going to the opthamologist every three months and happened to discover the iritis two weeks before her next scheduled appointment because she was
having some strange eye discharge that we were told was related to outdoor allergies. The opthamologist said the iritis was pretty advanced given she had no
signs of it 2 1/2 months earlier. We gave my daughter prednisolone drops every hour while awake for one week and dilated her eye twice a day, then went to four
drops a day for one week, then three drops a day for a week, and then down to one every three days for a week. We stopped the drops entirely a little over a
week ago.
We went back to her pediatric opthamologist today who said the iritis is back and wants us to start back on the drops, but she is going to get back to me on a course of treatment, including a referral to a uveitis specialist. The opthamologist said my daughter's pediatric rheumatologist mentioned to her after our November 4 appointment that if the iritis came back, we'd look into switching my daughter's medications. She's currently getting weekly Enbrel and Methotrexate injections and takes Naprosyn daily. Remicade and Humira were mentioned as possible new medications to treat the iritis, but I will hear directly from the pediatric rheumatologist tomorrow at my daughter's quarterly arthritis check-up.
I'm curious if a month is long enough to treat iritis with the eye drops or if we should have continued longer? I hesitate to introduce new medications like Humira and Remicade if the eye drops weren't used long enough. Does this sound like a normal course of treatment?
Thank you!
We went back to her pediatric opthamologist today who said the iritis is back and wants us to start back on the drops, but she is going to get back to me on a course of treatment, including a referral to a uveitis specialist. The opthamologist said my daughter's pediatric rheumatologist mentioned to her after our November 4 appointment that if the iritis came back, we'd look into switching my daughter's medications. She's currently getting weekly Enbrel and Methotrexate injections and takes Naprosyn daily. Remicade and Humira were mentioned as possible new medications to treat the iritis, but I will hear directly from the pediatric rheumatologist tomorrow at my daughter's quarterly arthritis check-up.
I'm curious if a month is long enough to treat iritis with the eye drops or if we should have continued longer? I hesitate to introduce new medications like Humira and Remicade if the eye drops weren't used long enough. Does this sound like a normal course of treatment?
Thank you!
