I am a mom and grandmother and so far my kids and grandchild have not had problems, but neither did I until I was in my 40’s. I am HLA-B27 positive and do not know which parent is positive. I also do not know if either of my children are positive.
I am in the education field and need the use of my eyes!!!
I first had an Iritis attack in 1999 while at work. I had a huge water pocket appear on my eye and pain like I couldn’t believe. In 2000, I seemed to have the attacks more than not having them. I was almost constantly using the pred forte drops and had to take steroid pills a couple of times (two packs straight through before relief) They were threatening injections in the eye.
A couple of years later, I saw information from some discussion groups and learned about people who seemed to have milk and milk products seem to trigger the attacks. I started avoiding milk and now have an occasional attack, but it usually always happens when I decided that something such as ice cream is worth the risk. I also eat cherries, celery and other anti inflammatory foods to try to avoid the attacks (especially when I get that taletell ache in the eyebrow bone). I have been attack free for 1 year and 1 month now, though I have had several times that I either had the eyebrow thing or the eye start turning red or getting the ‘blister’ on it. I usually hit the cherries and treat milk like poison and get it cleared up without the meds. Med free for over a year is great for me!!! It is well worth the sacrifice of the milk and milk products. I swear by it and though I get my weak moments and eat ice cream, I use soy for all my other milk needs (even yogurt) and often get the frozen soy bars instead of ice cream.
