Inflammatory eye condition iritis should be treated immediately

When a university professor friend of mine needs to write a thesis, or has a lot of work to do, he suffers from red eyes, blurry vision and headaches, and he becomes oversensitive to light.

He thought the symptoms were due to stress and working late at night, thinking this made his eyes tired. He believed the problems would subside after a good night's sleep.

The symptoms always persisted, and when I carried out a thorough eye exam, I found out he was suffering from iritis.

Iritis is an inflammatory condition of the iris, the coloured portion of the eye which surrounds the pupil.

It causes varying degrees of redness of the eye, often with significant pain, sensitivity to light, tearing, and blurred vision. Iritis is called anterior uveitis when inflammation occurs at the front part of the eye; any inflammation behind this is known as posterior uveitis.

The uvea is the collective name for the pigmented portions of the internal eye, and includes the iris, the ciliary body, and the choroid.