Eye Appointment #3 Update

Mia had another follow-up appointment with her awesome Pediatric Ophthalmologist on Friday.  Her inflammation is down to about 50% (answered prayer!) and all structures in her eye are looking good and her ocular pressure is normal and stable.  She still has some scar tissue on a few spots on her iris, so her pupil is still an odd shape, but it is definitely looking better than before.  We have another week of hourly corticosteroid eye drops, then we will try tapering it down to every 2 hours.  We have to watch for rebound inflammation, and if it starts to increase again, then we will go back to hourly drops.  We will also continue the dilating eye drops 3 times a day to continue to work on the scar tissue that is remaining.  Over all, her progress is going well.  At this time, there is no need for stronger oral corticosteroids (another answered prayer!).

We are still waiting for all paperwork and approvals to go through so that we can bring her in to see the Pediatric Rheumatologist at UNM Hospital.  It isn’t an urgent situation since she isn’t showing any sort of joint symptoms.  This condition is likely to return throughout her lifetime, so hopefully if it happens, we can always catch it early enough so that it doesn’t cause permanent damage.  That’s a bummer, but it’s good that we know what to look for now.  Another great development this week is that her vision in the affected eye is much better than that first week we came in.  Hopefully it will continue to improve as the inflammation continues to dissipate.  Our next follow-up appointment with the Ophthalmologist will be in 2 weeks.

Did you know that there is only 1 Board Certified Pediatric Rheumatologist in NM?  We are very fortunate to have one here, since I’ve heard that some people have to travel to different states to see a specialist.  Apparently, there are fewer than 200 certified pediatric rheumatologists  practicing in the US.  We are certainly very blessed to have access where we live.