How Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis Affects the Eyes

Beth Gottlieb MD Pediatric Rheumatology talks about Arthritis and Eye Exams.

Male Speaker: If rheumatic diseases were connected to the Arthritis, many times you are sent to an eye Doctor. Yeah, wait a minute, I’m worried about joints that small in and they since were eye drop, what would you do that? Beth Gottlieb: In children, who have Chronic Arthritis they’re at risk for developing inflammation in the eye and I can see it on my kind of exam when I look with that, I felt that sitting on the wall, I can’t identify it most times and the child has no symptoms at all. So, if we wait for the child to complaint that they’re having trouble with their vision, then it maybe too late to treat it well. So, it’s extremely important that children who have chronic arthritis see an ophthalmologist, not just an optometrist, but an ophthalmologist to be examined frequently. The amount of times that you go to an eye doctor in a year really depends on some of the lab test that are done and also the age of the child when they first diagnosed with arthritis. But generally, children will go to the ophthalmologist between every three months and every six months, so that’s very important not to forget. Again because they’re not going to complaint that they’re having trouble seeing. Male Speaker: So, if the iris gets inflamed, how did they treat them? Beth Gottlieb: It’s treated initially with eye drops and that would the first line of treatment by the eye doctor and they would continue to follow the patient very carefully to address the amount of eye drops at the child gets. In fact, its effective enough, then sometimes the dermatologist helps to keep other types of medicine also. Male Speaker: So then whereas if they work on inflammation, it can be controlled just to want to have it delayed and diagnosis what damage could be done? Beth Gottlieb: That’s right because unfortunately if this is not picked up and it’s not treated aggressively then it can lead to blindness, but it is that you’re in very effective treatments for it.