The cornea is a clear outer layer of your eye. Keratoconus is when the cornea thins and bulges out into a cone.
It is quite a rare condition that only happens to one in 2,000 people. Generally, it starts to develop around the age of 10 and continues until you are about 30 years old. The condition typically progresses at a slow and steady pace over many years. Unfortunately, there is no way to prevent it or to predict how keratoconus will affect you.
The causes are also not understood. Despite many years of studies, we are still unsure exactly what causes keratoconus. However, many believe that it is a genetic predisposition and that some people are simply born with an imbalance of production and destruction of tissue in the cornea.
Keratoconus manifests itself in the vision through glare around lights, difficulty seeing at night, vision-related headaches, sensitivity to light, or cloudy vision. The severity of your symptoms will vary throughout the time you have them, and so will your treatment.
In your early stages of having keratoconus, you will be prescribed glasses. However, as the keratoconus advances, these glasses will not be enough to keep your vision unblurred. Therefore, in the intermediate stages of keratoconus, your provider will perform a procedure called corneal collagen cross-linking.
This is a one-time procedure in which your doctor will apply and activate a vitamin B solution into your eye. As the keratoconus advances even more, you might be eligible for an implanted corneal ring. You may even receive a corneal transplant in which a donor’s cornea is placed inside your eye.
If you get a corneal transplant, you will still need to wear glasses or contact lenses after. Keratoconus is the leading cause of corneal transplants in the United States. Typically these are only done in mid to late adulthood. Most people who start developing signs later in life will not need a corneal transplant.
There are many tests for and ways to monitor keratoconus. Together with your doctor or ophthalmologist, you will get tested and decide on which path of treatment is right for you. They will also monitor you to evaluate at what time you should receive which treatment.
