Zelia, this is for you and others who may wonder what iritis feels like-this was my first encounter with it...
For me it always results in light sensitivity, especially as the condition progresses. When my eye hurts and I wonder if I'm flaring, I'll gaze right into a light to see if the eye has become light sensitive-there is pain associated with doing this if I'm flaring. If I'm not light sensitive, I do not consider that I have it until it does. That is my final test to know whether to get to the ophthalmologist, or not.
The first time I had this, I noticed my eye tearing excessively when I tried to open it in a lighted area (no pus-just tears), the whites of my eyes became extremely bloodshot, I had pain when going into a well lit room, and as the day wore on (remember, I had no idea there was such a thing as iritis-I wondered if I had what we call Pink Eye, or Conjunctivitis which is the proper name-the only thing was, I didn't have a pus-y discharge that would normally glue your eye shut like with pink eye), I noticed that my pupil had become "fixed." What I mean by that, is that the iris would no longer function by letting the pupil become larger in a darkened room, or smaller in a bright room. Iritis is inflammation, or swelling, of the iris, and when it is swollen, it does not respond to light any longer, and that is why the light hurts so much, and you try to squint against it to reduce the amount of light getting into your eye. The eye becomes bloodshot/red as a result of this swelling, because the blood can no longer flow through it, so it backs up in the vessles around it. Another symptom, was intense pain like a severe bruise when touching my eye with my eyelid closed. A fixed pupil is another clue that I've got iritis again.
What the eye doctor sees when they look into the eye are many white blood cells in the chamber of the eye-they don't belong there-this is the body's way of attacking what it thinks are invading cells, resulting in inflammation of the iris as the body attacks it's own tissue. This is why it is considered an autoimmune disease, and that is why steroids are used to treat it.
This is an excellent website to learn from:
http://www.iritis.org/After my 4th episode with iritis in the space of a year, the Ophthalmologist suggested I be referred to a Rheumatologist, and that was how I ultimately became diagnosed with AS. (I had been suffering with low back pain for many years by then and was clueless-I mostly sucked up the pain and took lots of Advil during my flares, I changed my mattress several times to deal with the pain during sleeping, but my symptoms improved immensely when I started exercising at a gym).
I pray you never develop this nasty condition-it can cause blindness if not treated. Hopefully this info has helped you...
