What Happens If You Ignore Keratoconus Symptoms?

At Invision Eye Care, we often emphasize early diagnosis and treatment of eye conditions like keratoconus. Although it may seem tempting to ignore it and hope it resolves on its own, unfortunately, doing so can have serious long-term consequences for your vision.

In this blog, our experienced team discusses why timely intervention is crucial when you have keratoconus.

Understanding Keratoconus

Keratoconus is a progressive eye disease that affects the cornea, the clear cover of the iris and pupil. Healthy corneas are round and don't change shape, but with keratoconus, the cornea weakens and thins.

As a result, it begins bulging outward, eventually creating a cone shape. Your corneas bend and focus light to help you see clearly, but they can't do these jobs well when you have keratoconus.

Even with early-stage keratoconus, blurry vision, increased light sensitivity, and poor night vision are common. But what happens if you ignore those early symptoms? Unfortunately, things only get worse.

Consequences of Ignoring Keratoconus

Ignoring keratoconus symptoms can lead to serious consequences. These include:

• Severe Vision Impairment: If left untreated, corneal thinning and bulging steadily worsen, leading to warping of the corneal surface. This problem, irregular astigmatism, isn't fully correctible with regular eyeglasses. Although glasses can help with symptoms, you'll often need new prescriptions because they don't treat the underlying problem. You might be unable to drive, see the faces of your loved ones, or read anymore.
• Corneal Scarring: As keratoconus steadily worsens, the cornea can develop scars that can worsen vision further.
• Corneal hydrops: Corneal hydrops occur when advanced keratoconus causes severe swelling that breaks part of the cornea's inner layer (Descemet's membrane) open. This leads to eye fluids rushing into the tear, making it a medical emergency.

The earlier you're diagnosed, the better we can improve your outcome and help you avoid the severe consequences we just discussed.

Treatment Options and Prevention

At Invision Eye Care, we believe the best treatment is prevention. Therefore, we offer corneal topography, an advanced test to map your cornea and detect changes early. We also provide genetic testing (a simple cheek swab) to determine whether you're at risk for keratoconus.

While these proactive screening methods can prevent many cases of keratoconus, some of our patients already have the disease when they come to us.

We treat keratoconus case-by-case, based on how the condition affects your vision and life. Two early treatment options include eyeglasses and monitoring (for the earliest stages) and custom contact lenses to reshape the cornea.

A corneal collagen cross-linking procedure combining riboflavin eye drops and UV light can help you grow new collagen fibers in the eye. The collagen links corneal fibers, creating a stronger and stiffer cornea.

In severe keratoconus cases, you could need corneal transplant surgery at our state-of-the-art outpatient surgery center.

Keratoconus Solutions from Experts

Are you worried about keratoconus symptoms? We can help, so don't wait for an emergency. Contact us by calling (732) 210-0140 now.