UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Hi For me the decision to go down the private route was purely based upon the expertise of the surgeon. I have a relative who had treatment and corneal transplants in both eyes which were botched by the NHS. Subsequently they footed the bill to send her to East Grinstead to see a specialised who did...

Hi Quite by chance I found out that I had KC when I was about 26 (or thereabouts). It was mild and didn't seem to progress very much until I hit 36, then it progressed very rapidly over a 2 year period. It wasn't until I visited my opticians who tried to sell me a pair of £350 pair of glasses that m...

Hi Sorry to hear that you're experiencing problems with your CXL eye. As you know, I had crosslinking in both eyes, followed by an auto lamellar keratoplasty (I was told that this is basically exactly the same procedure as a tranplant, but using my own tissue). Different surgeons did the crosslinkin...

Hi Would love to be able to put your mind at ease, but I'm afraid I'm no expert. I think everyone undergoing a procedure or eye operation's confidence wavers from time to time. All I can say is that time will tell. The main thing is that your eye and vision is healing and improving. I note that your...

Hi At the end of August I had a Wedge Resection/Auto Lamellar Keratoplasty (surgeon advised that this was a very similar procedure to a transplant. Anyhow, after the procedure I experienced triple vision which last for 4 weeks. It was extremely difficult to live with and made even going for a walk o...

Hi I'm afraid I cannot tell you with surety that C3R is safe in relation to UV exposure and cancer. What I can tell you is that I've had crosslinking in both eyes in July/August. Beforehand I did a bit of research and was satisfied that enough data had been gathered over 13 years to suggest it's eff...

Hi I had crosslinking in my right eye in June and found it a remarkably pain-free procedure. However, in July I had my left eye done and was in a bit of pain for a couple of days. Each eye was crosslinked by a different surgeon whose methodology varied slightly, for example, the surgeon who did my l...

Hi Vision in my left eye was 6/12 and my right eye 6/24. Because of the nature of my work (graphic designer) I got to the stage where I was having great difficulty reading text (I work on a lot of books, magazines, etc). I've never been able to tolerate contact lenses after trialling 32 pairs and gl...

Hi I personally think that the expertise of a specialist is the most important factor. Granted, the NHS route can have longer waiting times and a whole host of other issues associated with reduced budgets, staff being over-worked, inexperienced, etc), and so going down the private route can seem lik...

Hi It could take up to a year to achieve 6/12 vision in my right eye (after having had the wedge resection/ALK). My vision is better than expected which is a bit of a worry as the surgeon said that if things improved too quickly, it's failed. When I asked him about that, he was quite vague and said ...