UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Hello

So I have been wearing rgps for 3 days, gradually increasing the wear time. Already I am paranoid about my cornea getting scratched or something. Im just wondering is there any way( besides blurred vision) to know if the cornea is scarred, like the feeling, look etc...?

Hey 24k

I have moved your post to the General Discussion Forum; i reckon it will attract more answers here.

There are different degrees of scarring; a serious ulcer will be quite painful, and you would not be able to wear a lens on top of it. Such an ulcer can leave your cornea scarred so that vision would be impaired.

Far more common is light 'staining'. This will clear up in a matter of hours or days, although it may need some drops to help it on its way.

Regular attendance at a contact lens clinic would give your eye care professionals a chance to keep tabs on your corneas, and if you feel between appointments that you need to be seen, give them a ring and ask for an emergency appointment.

All the best

Andrew

Thanks Andrew for the response.

So a scar cant happen overnight or from a few wears, it occurs after a long period of time of continued injury to the cornea?

That's pretty much it as I understand it. The key is that I'll fitting lenses are not good for corneal health.

Andrew

There are several types of scarring.

Scaring due to KC is genrally irregular in shape such as that casued by hydrops.

Scaring due to contact lenses is more like paralel lines or the scuff marks you see after using a scouring pad on a stainless steel sink. I don't know how long it takes for scaring to occur but scaring due to conatct lenses can be due to poor fitting lenses causing the lens to rub excessivley on the cornea. Other types of scaring can be down to getting a specc of dust behind the lens, this one you will definitly notice as it really hurts (certainly when I was in RGP lenses).

As to how often this would lead to ulceration, an optom would be better placed to answer that.

The people I know who have had corneal scaring due to RGP lenses have changed to soft lenses for KC and actually found the level of scaring has gone down. It has never disappeared but reduced to a level that the scaring was no longer having a negative affect on their vision.

Thank you Andrew and Gareth for your responses.

Gareth can RGP's also cause [over decades] a slight 'ridge' or 'indentation' as opposed to a scar from being on the cornea for 16 hrs a day?

Lou,

I always felt my RGP's did this to me, but as my vision is very bad without lenses I was never sure if what I was seeing eas the outline of my graft.

This is probably left for Lynn to answer as she has detailed notes regarding what my eyes were like with RGP's before we started looking at the soft lenses.

One of the optoms at Moorfields did refer to something in my RGP eye