With small steps I am learning more and more about my health situation. Last week the first blood tests came back and as the doctors already expected, I have tested positive on HLA-B27. That by itself ain’t a problem, but together with my eye problem (acute anterior uveitis) the presence of HLA-B27 is often associated with an autoimmune disorder. In my case this means it very likely I have a rheumatoid arthritis related problem.

The eye doctor has referred me now to a rheumatologist for further investigation. So it will probably take some extra time before they can draw a conclusion. For now they expect my problem to be related to Bechterew’s disease or with a more funky name: Ankylosing spondylitis; more or less a rheumatic spinal cord problem. But again, it will most likely go with small steps before we get to that conclusion. First I have to wait and see what comes out of the visit to the rheumatologist.

Some good news as well! As my eye inflammation is finally starting to improve! For 2 weeks I had to put one drop of the anti-inflammation medication in my eye each hour, even though the enclosed medication guidelines stated a maximum of 4 drops a day!!! :-) But even being a factor 4 over the maximum amount wasn’t a problem according to my eye doctors. Since this Monday I am allowed to reduce the medication to 8 drops a day! OK, still quite a lot, but I haven’t had to much to cheer about the last weeks, so even the smallest improvement is welcomed with lots of cheers in this camp these days!! :-)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 21:14 and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.