If you have or think you have keratoconus you really need to look at what options are available to you in order to make the best decisions about your future vision. Your local optometrist may not be up to date with the latest treatments, so find read on to find out what your options are.

Keratoconus – What are your Options?

It is often quite a shock when you are first diagnosed with keratoconus. Your vision may have been regressing slowly and then very quickly you loose two lines of vision. The first thing you probably do is ask your optician a lot of questions.

• What is keratoconus?

• What are the symptoms of keratoconus?

• Can keratoconus be cured?

• What is my best option?

It may Surprise you to know that many opticians are not as familiar as they should be with the options keratoconus sufferers have. So depending who you ask, you will get very different answers to some of these questions.

What is Keratoconus?

It is a congenital disease of the cornea (autosomal dominant or autosomal recessive) and it belongs to the larger group of hereditary corneal dystrophies.

The keratoconus condition is characterised by thinning and conus-like protrusion of the cornea. This is due to alterations that cause weakening of the cornea structure.

What are the symptoms of keratoconus?

It usually starts during puberty or early adolescence. Sufferers of keratoconus realise a decrease in vision or blurring of vision, or an increasing myopia with significant progression of astigmatism.

Patients are usually advised to wear corrective lenses at first for driving or reading.

Can Keratoconus be cured?

There is no cure for keratoconus. If left untreated the condition can progress to the stage where a corneal transplantation is the final option to retain some degree of vision.

However, long before that stage, alternative treatments for keratoconus can be offered that aim to control the disease and in some cases reverse its effects.

Opticians have a responsibility to explore all solutions to impairment of vision. However, with keratoconus, early intervention using alternative treatments can sometimes make the difference between clearer stable vision and a future with severely impaired vision.

Soft or hard contact lenses (Toric lenses)

This is the first solution your optician will offer. In mild cases, rigid (hard) lenses or toric lenses can be used to improve visual acuity, yet they cannot stop the progression of the condition. Beware if your eyesight is changing rapidly and your optician is only offering you alternative hard lenses. If you are unfortunate the progression of the disease will soon lead to your options for treatment being reduced to a corneal transplantation. Sometimes when your optician can do no more you will get a referral to an ophthalmologist who will consider your options for a corneal graft?

A corneal graft is not the best way of restoring vision and visual acuity following a corneal graft can be very limited indeed.

What is my best option for keratoconus?

Following your diagnosis of keratoconus you need to start researching straight away. It is always best to do something about keratoconus as soon as possible because if it progresses it will soon limit the types of treatment that can be offered.

Read up about corneal collagen cross-linking with Riboflavin (C3-R®). This is a relatively new procedure that is minimally invasive and uses a combination of Riboflavin drops and ultra violet light that react with the tissues in the cornea, strengthening them by creating more ‘cross-linking’ among them.

The resulting increased stiffness and rigidity of the cornea stabilises the ectasia. Patients who previously had progressive ectasia have now been treated and followed for up to five years without evidence of any further change in their condition.

New Treatments for Keratoconus

Accuvision eye care clinics have been pioneering new treatment plans for keratoconus in the UK and the results have been dramatic.

Corneal Collagen Cross-linking fixes the corneas shape to stop it becoming even more cone-like. However, Accuvision have developed an additional treatment called Topography guided advanced custom ablation for keratoconus. This advanced treatment for keratoconus is designed to improve the central symmetry of the cornea with out attempting to correct other spherical, or other regular astigmatic, optical defects.

The treatment takes place over a small area of the cornea and is immediately followed by Corneal Collagen Cross-linking with Riboflavin to ‘fix’ the re-shaped cornea.

For further information on this exciting new technique, please research keratoconus using the term

Topography Guided Custom Ablation with Corneal Collagen Cross-linking for keratoconus.