SUCESS IN GRAFTS

[JERA]

I would like to know if anyone has a very good result with grafts or knows anyone who had very good results.
As a good result , I mean , getting perfect vision 20/20 with soft contacs or glasses. Not with RGPs, or intacts.
I´ve never heard of anybody with good results,as i described. They all need RGPs and stuf like that and do not get the 20/20 vision they look for.
I´m asking this because my doctor called me because after 5 years of waiting, it´s my turn for a transplant and i have a 20/40 with visin that i consider unsatisfactory, but i´m afraid to worsen it.

[GarethB]

Jera,

When a graft is done, your surgeon is trying to create a cornea that is easier to correct the vision in.

The research I have done and from attending the support group suggests that most people post graft get good corrected vision they are happy with using glasses. I do not know how many get 20/20. The rest still require the use of contact lenses either soft or RGP to get good vision.

The quality of vision post graft is mainly down to the skill of the surgeon and also down to how well you heal along with the skill of the optomotrist in correcting your visin with glasses. It is a real team effort that takes time.

I have had two grafts (one in each eye) and 12 months post graft I was fitted with glasses. About 2 years post graft I managed a few years with 20/20 uncorrected vision (only a small number of people achieve this). Then went quite some time with 20/20 corrected vision with glasses. I am now back on RGP lenses and my grafts are 18 years old. The reason I am back on RGP lenses is complicated and is to do with the cornea the graft is attached to.

So yes I am someone who has had very good results from having grafts.

Hope this helps.

Gareth

[JERA]

Thanks a lot.
It´s the first time that i´ve heard such fantastic results.
Bests

[Alison Fisher]

Hi JERA

As you can see from my sig I have two 'long lived' grafts, both of which I and my doctors consider extremely successful. With my glasses I have excellent vision (sorry can't say if it is 20/20 or not as I've never asked).

They are so successful that prior to joining here I could go for weeks or months without giving KC a thought.

Reading people's posts here about how much they struggle with their contact lenses has really brought it home to me just how lucky I am.

My eyes do give me more problems than a non-KCer's, but way less than before I had the grafts.

As someone on here said to me, if you go round the internet looking for personal experiences the bad usually outweigh the good as people whose grafts go well tend to just get on with their lives and not talk about it that much.

The recovery period is long and it does drag on at times but I would say the results are well worth it.

Sorry if this has read a little disjointed but it's been a very long day at work and I sit here typing with one hand and eating a ridiculously late dinner with the other.

Take care, and good luck no matter which direction you choose to take, Alison

[JERA]

Thanks for the answer alison.
But you said one thing that i didn´t understand.
You said that your grafts give you more problems than no KCers, wich kind of problems are these?
And congratulations for your succesful grafts .
Thanks
Jeronimo

[Andrew MacLean]

Jera

My experience is only positive. I had a graft in December 2003 and it has given me near perfect sight in the grafted eye.

There was a fairly long period of recovery after surgery, but they had prepared me for that.

I have had one or two slight difficulties as the tissue has threatened to reject. (It has never actually gone into a rejection)

I use steroid eye drops every second day.

Andrew

[Anne Klepacz]

Just to add to the 'success' stories. Grafts in 86 and 88. Now get 20/20 vision with either rgps or glasses. Like others here, took a while to achieve that result, with a few rejection episodes along the way (all successfully reversed). So for me, it was all worth it in the end. As Alison says, the people who have good results from a graft often don't bother with forums like this - they go off and get on with the rest of their lives! So I'm glad some of us stick around to share their positive experiences as well as the negative ones.
Anne

[Alison Fisher]

Hi again.

Perhaps 'problem' is too strong a word to use when comparing my eyes to those of a non-KCer. 'Different' is probably better.

My eyes are far more sensitive than those of the rest of my family, but not in a debilitating way. Bright sunlight is very uncomfortable so I have photochromic lenses in my glasses and rarely leave the house without a hat. I'll also go out of my way to stay in the shade. I've never been a sun lover so it's no hardship. Halogen lighting makes my eyes sore so I do my best to avoid it.

I still have some stitches in one graft, and if I think about it I am aware of something different about that one compared to the other which I assumed was down to the stitches but I was told last year that I have a slight ridge of scar tissue on that eye which is what I'm feeling. It's not really a problem though, and is in no way comparable to the discomfort of wearing rpg lenses.

I work with chemicals and the slightest hint of fumes from a few of them set my eyes off watering when those I work with are unaffected.

In a nutshell they are just more sensitive, but then they were that way pre-graft as well so how much can you put down to the grafts themselves?

I hope I'm not jinxing myself when I say this but I have never had a rejection episode, and it's been years and years since I had eye drops of any kind. I just go to my local hospital once a year for a quick check up and that's it. Considering how poor my sight was pre-graft my grafts are nothing short of miraculous. My KC has minimal impact on my daily life, which says it all really. I mean, what more could you ask for?