Just had uv crosslinking in Brussels but my epithelium....

[Brinky]

Hello all,

To give you an update on the situation from The Netherlands. As uv cross linking is the only option at the moment to stabilize keratoconus I went to Brussels Eye Doctors. Uv cross linking is still not carried out in The Netherlands My left eye was treated last thursday in Brussels and is still recovering right now. In the first place the epithelium should have recovered last monday, after 4 days (under the special contact lens), but that was not the case unfortunately. My sight is still dramatic, so tomorrow is exactly one week and I will go back to the hospital again to have the epithelium investigated.
I pray the epithelium has recovered tomorrow or friday! I will keep you informed.
Do other people have experiences on the recovery time of the epithelium after uv crosslinking or in general? And after the epithelium recovery what is the prognose on the vision, is it really 3 weeks to get your full vision back, at least that's what the doctor said in Brussels....

Thanks for your replies in advance!

Regards,

Ronald

[Sajeev]

A warm Welcome to you Ronald,

In general time lines can vary around an average, recovery can be be broken up in to different stages.

With in a week/2 weeks or there about's the Epithelium should have repopulated and healed, but mostly around the week mark, the disrupted vision due to the recovery and healing which is taking place can come back up to three months, mostly at half that time. Full recovery can be said to be pretty much at the six month mark where the cornea has settled to a profile, sometimes this is a better profile than before, for correction or even no correction, depending on where your KC was at to started with and if indeed if you was lucky to get a degree by however much some regression.

I could send you an attachment because statistical grafts/bar charts are hard to write about, so your welcome to PM me.

Take Care

[Andrew MacLean]

Ronald

Welcome to the forum. I am sorry to hear that your healing process after the C3R procedure has not been as you had expected.

Keep us posted on how things are working out.

All the best

Andrew

[GarethB]

At the confrence in June we were shown some topogrophies pre-and post op for intacs and C3R where there had been reported vision improvements yet the topogrophies were identical. The cornea itself had settled, yet when a topgrophy was done it appeared to be unchanged.

Just shows you need to look at more than one piece of information to determine how well the cornea is healing post op.

I think the important thing for us is how well we can see afterwards, the rest is often just of academic interest.

[Andrew MacLean]

Ronald

How are things now? We were left worrying about you

Hope things are getting better.

Andrew

[Brinky]

Hi Andrew,

Sorry for the late reply.
According to the eye doctor, the epithelium has recoverd, although it took 9 to 10 days
After that (last week) I was trying to use my scleral lens again but I have great difficulties right now to get used again to the scleral lens. Before the operation the scleral lens was "quite" comfortable but now it's a nightmare. I will call the doctor this afternoon, maybe it's a little bit too soon to wear the scleral again. And because I don't have glasses yet (I will go to the optician this evening) these 2 weeks after the operation were really uncomfortable because of the bad sight and not able to wear my scleral lens. Hopefully everything gets better soon !!!!

Regards,

Ronald

[Andrew MacLean]

Did your surgeon suggest that you ought to be able to wear the same scleral again after the procedure?

Andrew

[Brinky]

Hi Andrew,

Yep, 1 day after the epithelium had closed I should be able to wear the same scleral again (I spoke even 2 surgeons about this). Although the sight would not be optimal (70-80% by today). After 3 weeks, it should be the 90+ % again which I achieved with the scleral before the cross-linking operation. Maybe the the cilinder strength of the scleral needed to be adapted because of the changed cornea, but that was for later according to the surgeon. In first place I was allowed to wear the scleral for only a couple of hours on the first day (last monday) building it up again. But this has not worked for me last week unfortunately, a lot of pain and irritation so far But the sight seems to be ok with the scleral, only some kind of haze which I get when looking through the scleral.

Regards and thanks for your interest, appreciate that!

Ronald

[Andrew MacLean]

Brinky

Ik hoop de dingen spoedig verbeteren.

Andrew

ps When I worked as a University Chaplain in Glasgow we had a student from the Netherlands who taught me some Dutch. I hope that my memory for language has not let me down.

[Brinky]

Andrew,

Your dutch is pretty good, you forgot only one word which is commenly not used in England in this context: "dat" which means "that" in English.
Ik hoop dat de dingen spoedig verbeteren.

I hope so too....

Regards,

Ronald