Starting around 2009, I began having these crazy eye issues. I already have allergies so I thought it was just a bad allergy attack. Nope- I started dealing with iritis and uveitis ugh!
Allow me to remind everyone that I am not giving medical advice, but just sharing my journey that has allowed me to move toward better health.
So what are these strange sounding eye conditions? Iritis is inflammation of the colored part of your eye, the iris. Uveitis is inflammation of the middle layer of tissue in the eye wall. (Source: Mayo Clinic) Both are painful and happen really really fast.
Symptoms include eye redness, pain, blurry vision, bright light flashes and eye floaters. What is an eye floater you ask? Have you ever been stressed with tired eyes and see a squiggly line in your vision? That’s a floater. Both conditions can cause scarring in the eye 😭 so not much fun at all.
Traditional methods of controlling a flare up are cortisone steroid eye drops and/or an eye drop that keeps the eye slightly dilated to relieve pressure and strain. And I was getting these flare ups back to back to back. I mean, it’s to the point that I typically see an ophthalmologist rather than an optometrist. I’ve had allllllllll of the testing associated with the conditions and all test have been negative.
So I started pinpointing triggers. High seasonal allergies are a huge trigger so I started changing my habits – keeping shoes at the door, not rolling my car window down all the time, and even starting allergy shots to build immunity. Lack of sleep is another trigger which typically happens when I’m super stressed, a third trigger. Instead I make sure to get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep to keep the eyes happy. I try to incorporate more foods with beta carotene. And when it’s really bad, I take lutein vitamins. Whew! It takes work but all of those combined actually work.
Have you dealt with an eye condition similar to uveitis or iritis? If so, please share what has helped you. To your good health…until next time!
Fantastically 40-ish 