Uveitis, don’t take it lightly

  Uveitis, do not wait to see the redness of the eyes, tearing, dark shadows appear …… do not ignore these seemingly trivial symptoms, because it may indicate that you have “uveitis”. According to conservative estimates, there are at least 3 million patients with uveitis in China, with more than 100 different causes and types, and about 86% of patients under 50 years old. However, the general public is still far from being aware of it, and many people who are blind don’t know exactly what disease they have.”  Uveitis is a very common blinding eye disease, according to statistics in Western countries, about 10% of blindness is caused by uveitis, accounting for 3-7th place in blinding eye diseases, as it occurs mostly in young adults, and many blindness is not curable, so it occupies an important position in blinding eye diseases; uveitis is also a rather tricky eye disease in treatment, it is closely related to many systemic autoimmune diseases, and it is difficult for patients to detect and doctors to treat. It is difficult for patients to detect and complicated for physicians to treat. The outermost layer is the sclera (white of the eye), the innermost layer is the retina, and the layer between the sclera and the retina is the “uvea”. When the uvea becomes inflamed, it is called “uveitis”. There are many different types of uveitis, including keratoconjunctivitis, iritis, uveitis, mesoconjunctivitis, and allograft, and there are more than 100 kinds of systemic diseases associated with them.  Many people think it’s trachoma, or that they don’t wear their contact lenses properly, when their eyes get a little red and swollen. While these possibilities cannot be ruled out, it is worth noting that if you have a pre-existing medical condition, it is important to be aware that you may already have uveitis.  If you have any of the following conditions, you should seek medical attention at a specialist hospital: redness, pain, photophobia, tearing, vision loss or no redness or pain, but dark shadows floating in front of your eyes, blurred vision or distorted vision, flashing sensation, vision loss, etc. If not treated in time, it will easily lead to cataract, glaucoma, optic nerve atrophy and other complications, eventually leading to blindness, and a significant portion of the resulting blindness is irreversible. Once treated promptly and with proper measures, no complications can remain. Therefore, the sooner uveitis is diagnosed and treated, the better. In addition, patients with uveitis should be reviewed regularly to prevent recurrence, and should be seen early if they feel symptoms of recurrence.  Some doctors use a lot of hormones on children with uveitis, which can affect their bone development and prevent them from growing taller. Some drug abuse causes systemic complications and femoral head necrosis, so using large amounts of hormones is incorrect treatment, which may lead to adults losing their labor force forever or perforating their bones and intestines, and some even get schizophrenia, hypertension, diabetes, etc. as a result.  Some doctors prescribe more than 20 types of western medicine. Early misdiagnosis, misuse of hormones and antibiotics, and the use of multiple drugs together reflect three major problems in the field of the industry of treating uveitis – simplification of diagnosis, formatting of treatment, and complication of medication.  As doctors fail to diagnose, they generalize to uveitis, not knowing that there are hundreds of causes of uveitis, and treat with the most common hormones and antibiotics, using all of them if the treatment is not good, hoping that one will always work. This is irresponsible for the patient. Therefore, the treatment should be personalized, not only for the individual, but also in terms of the type and severity of the disease.