Just curious; when I had my first flare up of UC in 2005, I also had a retinal inflammation. Called a "cotton whirl spot" what happens is that I see a spot in my visual field, and an eye exam reveals an area of the retina that is inflamed; it shows up on the retinal photographs as a white dot or swirl, which the ophthalmologist said is an area filled with fluid. My vision is not blurry; I just see a spot or line like the after image of a camera flash. It's more or less constant, but more visible on plain backgrounds. I had this first in the right eye; saw a specialist who felt it would just go away on its own, which it eventually did after about 3 months and with follow up to monitor it. It's mostly been stable since. I did have a small spot a few years ago, but it was so tiny we decided just to watch it. It went away in about 10 days.
Well it has happened again, now in the left eye, though not as severe as it was the first time (it's not as bothersome; not quite directly in my visual field so I can more easily ignore it). Saw my optometrist today, who took some retinal photographs and is sending them to a retinal specialist. He suggested maybe steriodal eye drops but the specialist will confirm this; I should get a call by Thursday. They say it's probably caused by a general inflammatory process, but nobody has ever linked it to IBD either way; it's not the same as the more typical iritis or uveitis more commonly seen in IBD. It could be a condition unto itself. More frustratingly, they say it's not that common and they don't really have a good way to treat it, other than to wait it out. As usual, I get the rarer stuff nobody's heard of.
Just wondering, has anybody else ever had something like this? Was it linked to IBD? What treatment did you have?
The fun parade of 2013 continues...
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