Suggest Treatment For Recurring Epischleritis Of The Eye

Posted on Mon, 1 Sep 2014

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Mon, 1 Sep 2014 Answered on

Fri, 26 Sep 2014 Last reviewed on

Question : I have epischleritis of the eye. when I take a cortisone drop it eventually goes away. however, when I stop the drug or taper it, it comes back when I stop it. this is going on for a year. what can I do

Answered by Dr. Dadapeer K (27 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Investigations are required.

Detailed Answer:
Hello

Welcome to Health care magic

I am Dr. DADAPEER K, an ophthalmologist and I answer health problems related to eye.

I reviewed history and it seems you are having recurrent episodes of episcleritis.
Episcleritis respond to use of steroid eye drops. Since it is recurrent and comes back again on stopping the drug, the first thing I would like to do is to confirm the diagnosis and rule to scleritis.
Investigations to rule out the underlying cause are required. The common and routine investigations we order in people with recurrent episcleritis or with scleritis are Complete blood count, ESR, C- reactive protein RA factor, Mantoux test, Chest X ray...
We need to rule out some rare autoimmune disorders, granulomatous bacterial infections....
If any of the underlying causes are found out they require treatment.

Coming to treatment part since it is recurring on stopping the steroid eye drops, a course of oral steroids with tapering dosage can be tried.

Do consult with your doctor and discuss with him the need for the investigations or oral steroids and do get back to me with investigations reports or your doctors advice so that I can advice you further.

Hope I have answered your question and the information is helpful to you.

Thank you
With regards

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Ashwin Bhandari