Treatments for keratoconus

As a degenerative disorder of the eye, keratoconus is an eye disease which occurs in some patients’ adolescent years. It usually afflicts both eyes and the ability to drive a car or read normal print will be affected. Keratoconus patients will suffer substantial visual distortion, sensitivity to light, streaking and seeing with multiple images. Typically, these people will also suffer a minor blurring of their vision. At an early stage, this condition has no special symptoms as regular refractive errors. But the eyesight may deteriorate rapidly during its progression.

The reason for keratoconus

Keratoconus is caused by thin and bulging cornea, which mostly occurs in male teens and young adults. Cornea bulging usually brings distorted and droopy eye, resulting in blurred vision. Keratoconus patients also have abnormal tears. In addition, keratoconus is to some extent hereditary, so that other family members should be careful if there is one keratoconus patient in the family.

Rigid gas permeable contact lenses for keratoconus correction

Like other eye diseases that involve irregular cornea shape, keratoconus can be corrected by contact lenses. This is the most common treatment. In most cases, rigid gas permeable lenses will be prescribed and function successfully in keratoconus patients. GP lenses are the standard choice for rectifying poor eyesight caused by keratoconus and sometimes slowing down the progression of keratoconus.

Other contact lens solutions

If certain patients fail to adjust to RGPs, hybrid contact lenses such as SynergEyes can be the secondary choice. Another option that offers similar comfort as hybrid contacts is the technique of piggybacking. Soft contacts are the last choice, because they provide little help in preventing bulging corneas. As mentioned before, abnormal eyes and tears found in keratoconus patients make contact lenses harder for adaption.

Surgical treatments for keratoconus

In rare cases, none of above solutions using contact lenses works for keratoconus. There are still other treatments, such as intact insertion, corneal cross linking procedure and cornea transplant. Surgically implanted intacts can flatten the cornea and reduce irregularities, thus correcting myopia or astigmatism in keratoconus patients. By strengthening connective tissue within the cornea, C3-R can also be used to maintain proper cornea shape and thus achieve keratoconus correction. Cornea transplant is the most thorough solution, which removes an abnormal cornea and replaces it with a healthy one.