My baby blues are my favorite physical attributes. Thank you to Rankin for this photo during Leo Pharma's sponsored NYSKIN event on World Psoriasis Day.
I recently had my 40th birthday, and few days before, I had my annual ophthalmology exam to check for uveitis. Thankfully, I’ve never had uveitis, but I do have chronic dry eyes, which results from inflammation due to psoriatic arthritis.
I resigned myself that I would be walking out of that appointment with a prescription for glasses. During the past year, my vision became blurrier and blurrier. I just didn’t think I could buy any more time. Glasses seemed inevitable. But, after a vision test, the doctor said I could wait on “granny specs” because my vision issues were due to chronic dry eyes, not because I was getting older.
This seemed really strange to me because I’ve been dealing with my eye inflammation for four years, and I thought I was managing it well. I had no red, itchy eyes, no pain, hadn’t used any steroid drops in 12 months, and barely used artificial tears. In a nutshell, I thought I was doing pretty well. I thought wrong.
Even though I have no other symptoms, I still have active eye inflammation. My ophthalmologist told me to use artificial tears a few times a day, whether I think I need to or not. He recommended that I keep a bottle in my car for emergencies while driving because reading road signs causes me the most trouble.
If I don’t take care of my eyes, my vision will continue to get worse. This is just another example of how I think I have psoriatic arthritis under control, but clearly, I am still fighting inflammation of one sort or another. I learn new things every day.
For more information on how eye inflammation is related to autoimmune arthritis, check out this article from the Arthritis Foundation.
