I am a new sufferer to the odd and seems like incurable disease, but I am so glad to have found you all. Reading your stories has shed a new light on this very confusing time in my life!
I first came down with uveitis about 4 weeks ago. It started with my left eye feeling bruised. One day, it got considerably worse, and turned pink and was sensitive to light. I went to my GP who gave me antibiotic drops thinking I had the classic “pink eye.” By the next day, it wasn’t any better, he gave me another set of drops. I used them that evening, and by 11:00, I was woken out of my sleep with intense pain in my eye. With gauze over my eye and an eye patch on, the light from the TV was causing intense pain. I drove myself to the ER, and after a Cat Scan and the consultation of about 4 doctors, I was sent home with the diagnosis of Uveitis. I was given a cream to put in every four hours, and told to see an ophthalmologist within 24 hours.
Dr. Meehan put me on Pred forte every 2 hours, and dilation drops 3 times a day, and I was to follow up with him the next Friday. With a week passed, it still had not gotten any better, He encouraged me to stick with it for another week. He sent me for blood test which I got the next Monday. By Wednesday, my dilation drops were no longer working, I had put them in 3 times, and my pupil has not gotten any better, in fact, it had started to look deformed. I was sent in that day to see him. I learned my “deformed” pupil to be called sneak eye, and it meant that it was starting to attach itself to the retina, but he assured me it would go away. He prescribed me a stringer dilation drop which did the trick.
I had another appt. with him yesterday. He said my HLB test has come back negative meaning that I have a hyperactive immune system, and that the inflammation has moved to my retina. He added one more non-corticosteriod drop to my daily routine, and I am to see him in a week. If there is still no improvement, I have to move onto the injections, and then onto immunosupressant therapy.
All this is very scary to me. I am only 22 and have a son that is going to turn one next month. My vision is deteriorating by the second. I suffer from a condition called spondylolisthesis, for which I had back surgery to correct in March of 2001. Now, suffering with this, I feel like I am 80!
Even though reading your stories scare me a bit, I thank you for sharing them with me, and it has put this into perspective. Please feel free to e-mail me, oleblueeyes27@aol.com, with words of encouragement, as I feel I have a long road ahead of me!
Sincerely,
Jennifer
Vista, California
Jen~ “To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.”
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