If You Can't See Well Despite Glasses, Attention!

Ophthalmology Specialist Op. Dr. Eyüp Özcan gave information about the subject. Keratoconus is a disease with progressive thinning and steepening of the cornea, which is seen in 2000 out of every 1 people in the society. In the presence of this disease, there are complaints of rapid increase in the number of glasses and poor vision despite glasses. Keratoconus often appears in adolescence and it is known that it can start in childhood.

The most common cause of the disease we know is eye rubbing due to allergic eye diseases. If the correct allergy treatment is not performed and the eye is rubbed, the cornea becomes mechanically weak and keratoconus disease occurs with the activation of some enzymes. Allergic eye diseases are seen more frequently and the incidence of keratoconus is increasing, especially in countries that receive the sun's rays vertically, such as our country. A test called corneal topography should be performed even if there is no refractive error in those with allergic eye disease in adolescence. These patients usually have refractive errors such as myopia and astigmatism. The presence of keratoconus should be investigated again in patients with rapid changes in eyeglasses.

While vision is good with glasses in the early stages of the disease, glasses are insufficient in the middle and late stages. In this case, rigid gas-permeable contact lenses specially produced for keratoconus can be used, but it should be known that their use is not very comfortable. In advanced cases, visual acuity can be increased with intracorneal ring application and phakic intraocular lens placement.

With the early diagnosis of the disease, the progression of the disease can be stopped with a high success rate and a good level of vision can be maintained for life with corneal crosslinking operation without loss of vision levels. Unfortunately, the last resort is corneal transplantation in patients with late diagnosis and corneal thinning that cannot be crosslinked.

Kiss. Dr. Eyüp Özcan said, “Keratoconus is a disease that creates a serious socio-economic burden on which many treatments are tried to be developed all over the world. It is a preventable problem with early diagnosis and cross-linking treatment. Every patient under the age of 18 should be evaluated with corneal topography and corneal cross-linking treatment should be applied in the presence of progressive keratoconus.