Author: Admin (---.vnnyca.adelphia.net)
Date: 08-07-02 07:34
Mona,
I know how convinced you are that the constant opthalmologic treatment you have received is responsible for saving your vision, but there are very many of us out here that have not gone to eye doctors when we have had the floaters, vision blackouts, and other scary eye symptoms associated with sarc.
Uveitis is a SYNDROME, not a disease, and it describes a group of symptoms all associated with inflammation in the eye.
Personally, I believe that frequent intervention with steroid injections is at least partly responsible for later cataract formation. Additionally, the levels of Angiotensin and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D in the eye are also responsible for modulating the risk of cataracts (yes, the eye has a complete renin-angiotensin system within it, just like every other organ in your body)
We know that Cataracts and vascular degeneration are reduced by Angiotensin Blockade and we know that both ACE and Angiotensin are systemically high in Sarcodiosis. There is no reason why sarc's eyes should not also benefit from Angiotensin Blockade, its just that nobody has bothered to do the studies yet 
Therefore I am not a supporter of immediate and chronic intervention by opthamologists, especially while the underlying systemic inflammation (the ACE, Angiotensin II, and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D) remains untreated. Cataracts are a known side-effect of systemic prednisone, are are certainly also caused by local steroid injections.
Opthalmologists are familiar with treating normal patients, they have no concept that Sarc patients bodies frequently behave differently to drugs and treatment methodologies.
That is why I am emphasising a systemic approach. I personally retain a 20:20 vision (with glasses), even though I have been Stage IV sarc for over a decade. I look after my whole body, and I believe emphatically that until the systemic cause of the inflammation has been removed there is no point in treating the results of that infection organ by organ. The eye might seem to be very different from, for example, a kidney, but it really isn't 
I welcome everybody's comments.
..Trevor..
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