Iritis is a recurrent eye disease that leads to progressive eye damage, and in 20% of patients with severe permanent visual impairment or loss. What are the causes and symptoms of iritis? What is the treatment?
Iritisis an eye disease that affects the iris, the disc-shaped colored part of the eyeball membrane, and the ciliary body that supports it.
Iritis - causes
In most cases, iritis occurs in the course of autoimmune diseases, most of which are rheumatic diseases:
- Ankylosing Spondylitis
- Reiter's syndrome (reactive arthritis)
- psoriatic arthritis
Iritis is a common extra-articular symptom of rheumatic diseases, especially spondyloarthropathy (arthritis involving the joints of the spine). The most common rheumatic disease in which it occurs is ankylosing spondylitis (AS).
- rheumatoid arthritis
- juvenile arthritis
- Still's band
- autoimmune vasculitis
- systemic lupus erythematosus
- sarcoidosis
- multiple sclerosis
- inflammatory bowel disease
- Behçet's disease
- Sjögren's team
- Vogt-Koyanaga-Harada team
- tubulo-parenchymal nephritis
Other causes of iritis are: tuberculosis, syphilis, eye infections, lymphomas, postoperative complications.
The cause of the disease cannot be recognized in some patients. It is then about idiopathic iritis. However, some specialists believe that this type of iritis is an early symptom of spondyloarthropathy (it may precede the appearance of symptoms of this group of diseases for many years).
Iritis - symptoms
AcuteIritisgivessymptomssuch as:
- acute eye pain
- tearing
- photophobia
- eye redness
- change the color of the iris to a greenish or brownish color
- pupil distortion
- visual disturbance
Chronic iritis produces less severe symptoms. At first, you may not feel pain, your eye may not be red, and the decline in visual acuity is usually slow.
Iritis - research
If iritis is suspected, a slit-lamp examination (eye fundus examination) is performed.
Iritis treatment
As a rule, the doctor prescribes medications for topical application. In the event of an exacerbation of the disease, corticosteroids are additionally administered into the eyeball and orally.
If there are frequent relapses with progressive damage to the organ of vision or the appearance of new symptoms that allow the diagnosis of a systemic disease, therapy with drugs from the group of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) is used.
Wear sunglasses, do not watch TV or read until treatment is completed.