Anyone here with Chronic eye infections?

Hi Charteaux

I have had eye troubles but not to the extent you are having   I was told by my Gastro that they flare when my CD and RA flares. I generally use Acular eye drops for a week and they come good - as I said not as bad as yours.

I would voice my concerns about taking MTX and the risks of pneumonia with your Rheumy and maybe you will be put off till the better seasons come.

Sorry Im not much help - hope someone more knowledgable comes along

Take care and good luck

Jo

Thank you both it helps..
Yes I will mention this to my rheumy, too...
Hopefully he can start the mtx in March or June as usually the only thing that
bothers me in summer is allergies, I'm usually not sick then...
Thanks Taylsa and SydneyJo
((((((((((((((((((Healing Hugz)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Hi Char, I've been prone to some sort of ulcer on my eyes. My eye person tells me that it is fairly common with immune suppressed people. They are extremily sore and take weeks to heal, but hot compresses help relieve the pain.

Sounds as if you have more of a straight eye infection though. We open ourselves up to so many infections on these meds, its not easy.

I found mtx hard to take at first, heavy on my system but now I'm used to it I hate it if I have to come off it. It really controls my swelling wonderfully. I'm prone to pneumonia too, so as soon as I have a cough I have to go on anti biotics. No waiting around to see how I fight it, just pull out the big guns. Since my rheumy and chest guy have linked treatments I've been doing really well, take more anti biotics than I'd like too but no more pneumonia.

Good luck with it all, golitho

Hi Char, I've been away, got a visiting brother in law, so we took off down the coast for a week. Lovely to get out of the city, but now I'm feeling very unmotivated to get my jobs done!
Yeah, having my specialists talk to each other has made a huge difference to my treatment, before I was getting med interactions and all sorts of panic from one specialist until they started communicating. Now it's really good, everyone knows what to do, I have my action plan for asthma and my action plan for bronchitis, and no one is taking away the RA meds and upsetting my joints unless its really necessary to fight off a major infection.
You need someone to sort you out too. Hope the eyes heal soon. thinking of you, golitho

Exitwound thanks that something I think I'll talk over with my rheumy.
I got put on steroid eye drops today and will have to use then for the next 3 weeks..
my left eye was rejecting the restasis, tearing up and swollen, sometimes I wish I could
take my eye balls out and squirt antibotics on them and push them back into my head.
If it is reactive arthritis then I might have to be hospitalized as I'm allergic to Erythromycin
the main antibotic used to treat it. Life just got COMPLICATED...

Saw the rheumy yesterday, he took awhile with me going over my hand mri, and this was the findings:
Small bare area erosion at the radial margin of the third metacarpal head.
Small subchondral erosion at the base of the proximal phalanx of the second digit.
Mri of right wrist, Indication: Arthritis
4 mm erosion at the trapezoid margin of the capitate. Tiny cyst in the distal capitate.
Nothing showed up on any of my bloodwork and I had over 20 vials taken in August.
and he is going to try me on a sulfa medicine for now and maybe get me started on mtx in late February/
early March.
I sure wish I knew why nothing shows up on bloodwork yet it's always showing up on MRI's now I'm getting afraid of having any
more MRI's...Geezee...
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((HUGZ to All))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Chartreux said...
Exitwound thanks that something I think I'll talk over with my rheumy.
I got put on steroid eye drops today and will have to use then for the next 3 weeks..
my left eye was rejecting the restasis, tearing up and swollen, sometimes I wish I could
take my eye balls out and squirt antibotics on them and push them back into my head.
If it is reactive arthritis then I might have to be hospitalized as I'm allergic to Erythromycin
the main antibotic used to treat it. Life just got COMPLICATED...

Antibiotic therapy for Reiter's/ReA has an extremely mixed record of results. If you already have other auto-immune conditions, you can develop it secondary to those and you don't need an active infection to keep it going (though one will definitely cause it to flare up). There's a lot of debate as to whether antibiotic therapy actually helps when you don't have an active infection, and whether "simmering" infections such as biofilms are a major factor.

Antibiotics are often also anti-inflammatory to some degree or another, so that can complicate the analysis of benefit.

FYI, one antibiotic or another is often mentioned in the literature as being the "go-to" treatment for ReA. But that's usually just a reference to its acute form; once it's become chronic, or when it's part of a cluster of other auto-immune conditions, rarely are antibiotics effective except to help relieve flares caused by treatable infections.

I would think that there would be numerous alternatives even within antibiotic treatment to Erythromycin or even any of the 'mycin family period. The 'cyclines are often front-line options as well.