Uveitis means your uvea is inflamed. Uvea is the middle eye layer. It includes your iris, the colored part of your eye, and its a major blood supplier to your retina.
Uveitis is broken into various types depending on the location of your uvea inflammation. The predominant form is anterior uveitis, often referred to as iritis because it affects the iris. The other forms include posterior uveitis, aka choroiditis, and pars planitis.
Uveitis can suddenly occur, causing one or both eyes to become red and light sensitive (photophobia). You may also experience symptoms of:
Light sensitive red eye uveitis, iritis symptoms may cause you vision problems for a short time or they can persist.
Uveitis may have an associative cause if you suffer an autoimmune disease, inflammatory health condition or an infection via certain bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites, like:
- AIDS
- syphilis
- psoriasis
- sarcoidosis
- tuberculosis
- Lyme disease
- toxoplasmosis
- histoplasmosis
- reactive arthritis
- Whipple disease
- multiple sclerosis
- Behcet syndrome
- Epstein-Barr virus
- Reiter’s syndrome
- Kawasaki disease
- rheumatoid arthritis
- coccidioidomycosis
- ankylosing spondylitis
- cytomegalovirus retinitis
- Wegener granulomatosis
- juvenile rheumatoid arthritis
- herpes ~ chicken pox, shingles
- inflammatory bowel disease ~ Crohn disease, ulcerative colitis
Or the cause for your uveitis or iritis eye health condition may never be discovered.
Persistent uveitis can lead to some possible complications, such as:
As such, you need to have this cause for your red, light sensitive eye treated.
Aside from treating your underlying disease, specific treatment for uveitis and iritis may involve:
- eye dilating drops to relieve pain
- wear dark glasses for light sensitivity
- glucocorticoid steroid drops to relieve inflammation
Most cases of iritis will be relieved with treatment. However, posterior uveitis may persist even with treatment.