The middle portion of your eye is the windshield or the cornea of your eyes and usually has a dome shape that converts to a conical shape gradually if the cornea is not strong enough to hold the dome shape. The occurrence of this conical shape is known as Keratoconus.
How is Keratoconus caused?
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| Keratoconus |
The fibers, that you must know about, being present in your eye makes sure that cornea stays in place and in shape as well. Deficiency of some nutrients or just wearing out of the fibers leads to the conical shape of your cornea. This, in turn, gives a look of bulging out to your eye. What happens in the general scenario is that your corneas cells produce some amount of damaged products or waste that is taken care of by the antioxidants and hence protect the protein fibers. Therefore, if in case the number of antioxidants deduces in our cornea, the protein fibers will weaken up, resulting in a visible bulge out of our cornea. This disease is usually genetic and can be the reason why it occurred to you. If you or your parents had Keratoconus, there are good chances of your children suffering from the same disease. It would be a good idea to get your kids’ eyes tested around the age of 10 or so.
Symptoms of the disease keratoconus
The disease usually takes place when the person is going through their teenage years. This might occur in older people as well but the chances are very low. It begins when the person is a child and can also be caused in people of about 30 years old. Keratoconus is generally caused by a constant decrease in protective antioxidants in the cornea. Antioxidants are heavy in germ content and they create a negative effect on the collagen variety of the eye skin as well.
The bulging of your eye or the change in shape may happen quickly or can even take several years to show the signs. The usual symptoms that you notice are the blurred vision, light streaks, glare at night, etc.
There are some specific symptoms that the doctor will notice such as:
- Vision in one eye changes drastically
- The occurrence of double vision in just one eye
- Bright lights looking like halos around them
- The occurrence of images of ghosts
Keratoconus: Its Effects
The changes that occur to your eye can either happen very quickly or can even take several years. The course and duration cannot be predicted. The damage usually happens to both the eyes but the extent can be different for each eye. There are cases of one eye being damaged first and the other one develops the damage gradually and after a while. It generally runs in the families, and once it is detected, it is not very easy to cure. You need to take care of your children right from the time when they are 10 years old.
How to treat it?
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| Keratoconus |
Keratoconus leads to the problematic vision which would make use of specs or lenses a necessity for a permanent time. To tackle the issue, once and for all, you may need to get an eye transplant or a surgery.
In the later stages, treatments to enhance the vision and strengthen the corneas fibers would be recommended. If the disease is detected in the early stages, doctors recommend a treatment that could crosslink the collagen fibers back and prevent things to get worse.
Keratoconus being a genetic disease cannot be prevented in most cases. There are many symptoms such as light streaking, blurry vision and occurrence of ghost images that could spill the beans. Get your eyes tested as soon as possible and get an early treatment before the situation worsens.
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