Chronic conjuntivitis and CD

[Clash]

Hey guys, several weeks ago C had been dx'ed with conjunctivitis by the ophthalmologist. The ophthalmologist has experience with patients with CD and is very knowledgeable about the ocular EIMs(yes I quizzed him). He is the doc that dx'ed C with episcleritis awhile back and offerred a second opinion which I took him up on, second opinion agreed.

Anyway, back to the conjunctivitis, it hadn't itched, burned or been painful so when we made the appt I assumed it would be his episcleritis flaring but ophthalmologist checked for all the itises and said it was conjunctivitis but he wasn't sure if it was the infectious or non infections type but treated the same with meds.

Here's the thing, his eyes had been red a few weeks before that appt but C convinced me it was fatigue, xbox, allergies. Second time it flared we had the appt. it cleared up with meds.

But two weeks later it is back, still not painful, itchy, or bothered by light.

I've read several links where conjunctivitis was included in the EIMs, just wondering if anyone else has come across anything in their research.

Also if it was something like vasculitis I am assuming the symptoms would be present and the ophthalmologist would be able to determine that with all the eye testing tools he uses?

 

[my little penguin]

DS has chronic conjunctivitis .
Your eye doc should be able to tell you the cause and keep it under control.
DS has limbal vernal keratoconjunctivitis .
He will need to stay on steriods in his case for life .
He aslo uses antihistamine drops daily .

His is not directly related to the crohn's but the eye doc says the eyes are just reflecting the inflammation in the rest of his body .

 

[Clash]

Thanks MLP. I guess once we are past the followups with GI and rheumatologist we will go back to ophthalmologist. He is using the meds given a couple weeks ago right now and it seems to work really well.

 

[Patricia56]

No info for you just sending healing thoughts and hopes this is just a phase.

 

[Jenn]

Ditto here! My son has vernal conjunctivitis. We were treating it before his Crohn's dx. He's on Zaditor and we recently quit the daily steroid as it wasn't doing much anymore. We still use it for a big flare, mostly it's just cosmetic. Originally we thought he'd outgrow it, I guess it's fairly common with boys. I didn't think it was an EIM, but Optho now thinks so.

 

[my little penguin]

Jenn
Limbal vernal keratoconjunctivitis is not cosmetic .
The eosinphils build up during inflammation creating trantas dots ( scar tissue).
Just like crohn's the more times its inflames the worse the scar tissue.
If it's not kept undercontrol and prevented from inflaming then shields can form on the eye resulting in loss of eye sight.

http://www.oculist.net/downaton502/prof/ebook/duanes/pages/v4/v4c009.html

My DH had it for years ( un dx by optometrist -eye doc thought is was cosmetic as well).
Only when DS ( who also had it for years un dx same opto) saw an opthamalogist did both my DH and DS get proper treatment .

DS was on one steriod but moved to fluromethasolone drops when it became clear he could not wean off the drops.
He also uses ( zaditor /patanol/pataday ) depending on the time of the year .

 

[Jenn]

My bad, sorry. Yes, he has some scar tissue already and we are trying to minimize more of that. What I meant by cosmetic, is that we can't do much for the stuff already scarred/red. The redness bothers me more than it does him, no itching or pain. But we do still treat when it flares worse, though that is hard to tell exactly.