Do you remember when you first noticed.....

General forum for the UK Keratoconus and self-help group members.

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Moderators: Anne Klepacz, John Smith, Sweet

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Matthew_
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Posts: 814
Joined: Thu 13 Jul 2006 3:13 pm
Keratoconus: Yes, I have KC
Vision: Graft(s) and contact lenses
Location: Gallafrey

Postby Matthew_ » Fri 20 Oct 2006 7:57 am

My general eyesight was obviously getting worse about 10 years ago. I was already myopic but was progressing through glasses prescriptions at a rate of knots. Becasue at that time my job was bridge watchkeeping at sea, my sight had to be sharp. It was very obvious when it wasn't because fishing vessels looked like navigational buoys and so on. I went from a -.25 to -1.25 lens in about 18 months but no idea at that stage about KC. I used soft lenses a lot because I work outdoors a lot in harsh conditions. I started to realise about a year ago that the lens power was making no difference. I have yearly eyesight tests and I was crashing up the chart each time and even my lenses weren't helping. At one of my regular check ups at my high street optician, the optometrist first mentioned KC (I thought 'what did she just say?'). I'd never heard of it. But I remember her trying so many different lenses to no avail. So I was referred to Gartnavel. The rest is history....
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Get a life...get a dog!

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Alison Fisher
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Posts: 334
Joined: Sat 18 Mar 2006 12:56 pm
Keratoconus: Yes, I have KC
Vision: Graft(s) and spectacles
Location: Leicester

Postby Alison Fisher » Fri 20 Oct 2006 8:38 am

I was 16/17 and noticed that I couldn't see the clock at work as clearly with my left eye as I could with my right. I went to the opticians and told I only needed the lowest strength lens to correct it so they were surprised I'd noticed the difference between eyes. That has carried on since as I am very aware of the slightest change in my prescription. Anyway, the prescription in my left eye kept changing and pretty soon my optician told me she thought I had KC. It didn't bother me much until a year or so later when it started in my other eye. That really knocked me for six. :(
grafts in 1992 and 1996

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Michael P
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Posts: 836
Joined: Mon 30 May 2005 10:34 am
Keratoconus: Yes, I have KC
Vision: Contact lenses
Location: London

Postby Michael P » Fri 20 Oct 2006 5:36 pm

The first time I realised i had a problem was just before my 17th birthday. By the time I had put my arm out at the request bus stop opposite my home the bus had already gone by. Glasses did the trick.

When I was 21 i decided to change to contact lenses, not because of vanity I may add but because my glasses steamed up when I played tennis.

I found that the vision with the lens in my right eye was slightly worse than my left.

My lens practitioner worked very hard to improve the vision in my right eye but eventually referred me to a consultant who referred me to another one who then diagnosed KC.

Up until 3 years ago i noticed no change in my sight and with lenses, KC had been nothing more than a very minor inconvenience. Lucky me. It had never occurred to me that one day I would be entertaining the idea of a graft!

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Andrew MacLean
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Posts: 7703
Joined: Thu 15 Jan 2004 8:01 pm
Keratoconus: Yes, I have KC
Vision: Other
Location: Scotland

Postby Andrew MacLean » Sat 21 Oct 2006 4:58 pm

I was at school. I was aware that I was needing to develop all sorts of strategies to pass the eye test, and then I found reading books was becoming a chore: the font seemed to change colour from black to greenish and then the letters jumped about the page.

this was the first sign of the onset of Migraine, form which time my sight continued to deteriorate.

Andrew
Andrew MacLean

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Prue B
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Posts: 174
Joined: Mon 13 Feb 2006 1:00 am
Location: Australia

Postby Prue B » Sat 21 Oct 2006 11:05 pm

I had just turned 18 and was at uni studying nursing. I used to sit in the 2nd bottom row at the lecture theartre, when my mate next to me asked if I saw all right because I squinted a lot. I sadi did n;t he. I had had a phsyical 2 or 3 months earlier than that and I could read the bottom line of the chart easily so felt that I saw pretty well. In the next 2 weeks or so 2 things happened, my friends made appointments at optometrists they could not keep and offered them to me, and I kept creeping closer to the front of the theartre and was battling to see the overhead projector in the first row, squinting. It was only 2-3 weeks from this conversation till I went home at easter, and I said I would see an optometrist at home. I told my mum and got an appointment. He went to say I was probably shortsighted, but then said no we will examine you first, I should never diagnose before an examination. I was shocked to find I was really battling to get the second line on the chart. It was only about 3 months since I was reading ther bottom of the chart. I knew it was bad when he called my mother in before giving us the diagnosis. I was grafted in both eyes within 10 years of diagnosis.

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John Smith
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1941
Joined: Thu 08 Jan 2004 12:48 am
Keratoconus: Yes, I have KC
Vision: Graft(s) and spectacles
Location: Sidcup, Kent

Postby John Smith » Sat 21 Oct 2006 11:32 pm

Hi Prue,

That's an interesting story. It shows just how fast KC can gallop when it wants to, and also that you were kept away from the knife for a full ten years after the event.
John

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piper
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Posts: 188
Joined: Wed 25 Oct 2006 2:15 am
Location: Southeastern Louisiana USA

Postby piper » Wed 25 Oct 2006 12:20 pm

KC sort of creeps up on us, doesn't it? As a boy I built model airplanes and really like the old ones, the biplanes. When my KC started I was living in a small town in the far north part of Michigan, USA, that was about 1999. There was a little airstrip in town and I was delighted to see so many biplanes coming and going overhead. When Fall came, the ducks and geese each had fourwings, too!! My eye doctor didnt recognize it and just fitted new contacts. When the pain got too great I eventually got to an Opthal in a neighboring town.

Well, it has progressed now to a point where the Louisiana State University Eye Clinic doctors have advised me to have atransplant in the right eye to start, the left next year or so.

It has been a long and frustrating seven years. You all know the story.

When it comes to WHAT DO KC PATIENTS SEE? I get out an empty, clear glass, beer bottle and tell people to just hold it up like a telescope, look down the neck, through the bottom and tell me what they see. So far, that is the best approximation I've found. Otherwise, they just can't picture it.

Cheers, Piper

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Gareth2
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Posts: 48
Joined: Tue 11 Jul 2006 4:43 pm
Location: Wales

Postby Gareth2 » Thu 26 Oct 2006 2:18 pm

the first time I noticed changes was driving at night and the on coming headlights where all just one big blur. lot's of head aches and double vision followed that then I decided to go to optitions, they prescribed glasses at first but the strength would keep changing after a short time and then i was refured to hospital eye department and was told I had KC in left eye. I started using RGP's in 1997 and then right eye developed KC in 1999. then came the splitting of cornea in left eye late 2005 and first graft came in feb 2006. to be continued.


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