Optic neuritis

Injury	Disease	Nutrition	Poison

Symptoms	Surgery	Test	Special Topic

External and internal eye anatomy

Optic neuritis

Treatment:

Visual acuity often returns to normal within 2 - 3 weeks with no treatment.

Intravenous corticosteroid therapy may accelerate visual recovery but may be associated with systemic side effects. Oral corticosteroid therapy may increase the risk of recurrence, and is seldom used for initial therapy. It may be used after initial intravenous corticosteroid therapy.

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Further tests may be needed to determine the cause of the neuritis, and the condition causing the problem would then be treated.

Expectations (prognosis):

Optic neuritis without underlying disease such as multiple sclerosis has a good prognosis for recovery. Optic neuritis resulting from multiple sclerosis, or other autoimmune disease such as systemic lupus erythematosis, is associated with a poorer prognosis.

Complications:

Systemic side effects of therapy
Vision loss

About 20% of patients with a first episode of optic neuritis will develop multiple sclerosis.

Calling your health care provider:

Call your health care provider immediately if sudden loss of vision in one eye occurs.

If you have optic neuritis, call your health care provider if vision decreases, pain in the eye develops, or if symptoms do not improve with treatment.