What is it like Living with Keratoconus?
To call the eye a complex organ would be an understatement. That complexity is what enables us to see, but it’s also what creates a diverse range of conditions that can impact the quality of your sight. Understanding these conditions and the treatments available for them is vital for knowing when to speak to an eye care practitioner. Keratoconus, a condition affecting the shape of the eye’s cornea and causing long-lasting impacts on a patient’s quality of vision, is one such condition.
What is Keratoconus?
The most exterior layer of the eye, the cornea is both your eye’s first line of defense and a critical factor in focusing the light into your pupil and ultimately onto the retina. In a patient with keratoconus, the cornea weakens and becomes thinner, eventually becoming too weak to hold its semi-spherical shape on the eye. The result is a gradual change in the shape of the cornea. This gradual change typically involves both eyes, although asymmetrically.
In time, these changes transform the cornea into a cone-like shape, lending this disease a portion of its name. Individuals with keratoconus often experience near-sightedness, blurry vision, distorted images, and extreme glare when viewing lights, especially at night. The condition is usually not painful, but can have a significant impact on an individual’s visual acuity.
