A medical term ending in “itis” means that we are dealing with an inflammation, in this case an inflammation of the eye, and to be more specific the iris and connected tissue called the uvea.
The iris is the part of the eye that surrounds the cornea and gives us the colour that makes our eyes different from one another, and contains the pupil at its centre, regulating the amount of light coming in.
Uveitis is a general term for inflammation in the middle layer of the eye which extends from the front at the iris to the retina at the back. There are three distinct categories of uveitis, depending on its position within the eye:
• Anterior Uveitis
Anterior meaning “at the front” this category of inflammation is right at the iris itself, and makes up the most common of the three, up to 90% of the total, so much that it’s given its own name – Iritis.
The renaming of the most common Uveitis as Iritis has led the medical fraternity to interchange the term frequently when diagnosing and treating, since they are of essentially the same thing.
Anterior Uveitis can be further sub-divided into two groups according to the period of treatment required – a few weeks or a few months, a chronic condition.
• Intermediate Uveitis
Intermediate meaning “in
