Causes of uveitis
When it comes to the causes of iritis, medicine is constantly learning new things. Many ideas have been gained only in recent years and new connections are constantly being discovered.
For example, recent studies show that iritis can be triggered by stress. Patients with active uveitis and those with dormant uveitis were asked about their perceived level of stress. Those with active uveitis described a significantly higher stress level than the control group.
Uveitis can be roughly divided into two groups:
- Primary iritis
- Secondary iritis
basic form
A small percentage of sufferers develop a primary form of iritis. In this case only the eye is affected and there are no other diseases. Inflammation can appear once, but iritis can also occur again and again.
minor form
With secondary iritis, the disease can be seen in a systemic form, that is, there is another disease in the body, the consequences of which affect the skin of the eye. This could be an infection, for example. Science has identified the following factors as etiological factors for uveitis:
In many cases, iritis is a comorbidity of chronic diseases such as:
- Ankylosing spondylitis: Chronic rheumatic disease
- Morbus Writer: Reactive arthritis, an inflammatory joint disease
- Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis: Inflammatory bowel disease
- psoriatic arthritis: Arthritis in psoriasis
- Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis: Rheumatoid arthritis disease in children
- Sarcoidosis: Also Buick’s disease, which is a systemic disease of connective tissue.
One of the most common comorbidities in Bchtero’s disease, which is a special form of rheumatism, is iritis.
Autoimmune diseases as possible triggers
Often the cause of iritis lies in the body’s autoimmune reaction, then the body’s defense switches to its own structures.
Known autoimmune diseases
- multiple sclerosis,
- sjogren’s syndrome,
- psoriasis,
- Crohn’s disease
- rheumatoid arthritis or
- Hashimoto’s (thyroid disease).
Many autoimmune diseases are caused by psychological stress and overwork, so it is also important to consider the extent to which iritis can be triggered by stress.
