Keratoconus
EYE CARE DOCTOR
I have been diagnosed with keratoconus. What is it?
Keratoconus is a progressive eye disease in which the normally round cornea thins out and begins to bulge into an ice-cream cone shape.This causes blurry vision.
Eye rubbing accelerates disease progression. This induces astigmatism which initially can be corrected with the use of soft contact lenses and if the cornea becomes too affected (steep) hard contact lenses are used to correct distorted vision.
Corneal Crosslinking
This is one of the treatment modalities for keratoconus. The rate of corneal grafts has decreased since the advent of Crosslinking.
It’s an in office procedure which helps strengthen your cornea and stops it from bulging forward (this works beautifully provided you stop rubbing your eyes). Your ophthalmologist will prescribe eye drops which will assist you in achieving this goal. You will also get more information on exactly how the procedure is done and how much time you will need to recover. You will need visual aids in terms of contact lenses or glasses afterwards. Crosslinking does not correct your eyesight but stops it from worsening.
Your ophthalmologist will offer you this surgical option if you are not eligible for other treatment options like hard contact lenses or crosslinking. This is when your diseased cornea is cut out like when cutting out cookies and replaced with a donor cornea that is disease free. In South Africa we have various eye banks in each province . Corneas can be imported as well. It’s important to register as a donor because of scarcity of age matched donors in South Africa. It is not compulsory to be a donor though.
Eye Specialist & Opthalamic Surgeon
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Dr Sineziwe Mulonga is an Ophthalmologist, a specialist eye surgeon for treatment of medical eye conditions, specialising in surgical and medical retina.
We pride ourselves in providing you with a professional environment and we aim to please all our patients
