About Keratoconus

What is Keratoconus

Keratoconus (KC) is a condition of the eye meaning conical cornea.  It is a rare condition. Numbers affected vary between 1 in 3,000 and 1 in 10,000 depending on where they live. It usually affects both eyes, although one eye is normally affected before the other.  KERATOCONUS literally means “conical or cone-shaped cornea” and it is a condition that affects vision. – Continue Reading…

Vision Examples

Here you can see typical examples of what someone with Keratoconus sees.  – View images

Hydrops and Keratoconus

A few KC group correspondents have had a hydrops recently. Acute hydrops episodes come out of the blue, often at night with not even any warning signs the evening before. The acute phase can be very uncomfortable, or extremely painful may be a closer description. The vision is suddenly misty, or in bad cases, a complete white out. The posterior membrane of the cornea suddenly splits and water from inside the eye cascades into the corneal stroma causing severe oedema, often with mini blisters which progress through the cornea to the epithelium at the front. There are lots of nerve endings in the epithelium: that is why it is so painful.  – Continue reading…

Abnormal Eye Rubbing

What Families Need to Know

EYE RUBBING is abnormal when it lasts too long, or occurs too frequently, or uses too much force, or keeps recurring over a long period.

  • Even gentle rubbing causes the pressure inside the eye to more than double. Hard rubbing results in pressure which can be more than 10 times normal.
  • The cornea may become damaged when it is squeezed between rubbing force and the high pressure inside the eye.
  • The damaged cornea may become weakened and less resistant to the pressure inside the eye. The weakened cornea can bulge forward into an irregular conical shape (as illustrated by the sequence of corneal shape maps: A (normal), B, C, D (Conical cornea or keratoconus). – Continue reading…

Conjunctivitis

Conjunctivitis is an inflammation or infection of the conjunctiva, which is the thin, clear membrane over the white part of the eye and also the lining of the eyelids. It’s common name ‘pink eye’ relates to the pink or red colour the affected eye has which is due to inflammation.  Continue Reading…

When to go for a Transplant

Corneal transplants have been refined to an exceptionally high level of expertise over the years, and KC is one of the most commonly encountered indications. For other conditions, the surgeon is usually dealing with a seriously unhealthy cornea which may be opaque and vascularised. In such cases, there is much to gain and nothing to lose from the standpoint of achieving a visual improvement, but there is a high risk of rejection and transplant failure from other complications.  – Continue reading…

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