Keratoconus symptoms
El keratoconus It is a disease that It causes a deformation in the cornea and the most visible symptom is the cone shape that the cornea adopts. It mainly affects adolescents and children, so it is essential to make an early diagnosis.
Keratoconus symptoms
El keratoconus It is a disease that It causes a deformation in the cornea and the most visible symptom is the cone shape that the cornea adopts. It mainly affects adolescents and children, so it is essential to make an early diagnosis.
What is keratoconus?
El keratoconus or keratoconus is a degenerative pathology of the cornea because of a thinning of the same by the part. entrance. The most visible symptom is the progressive deformation of the cornea, causing it to adopt a cone shape.
This disease involves a progressive loss of vision, associated with myopia and astigmatism.
Keratoconus symptoms
Most commonly, keratoconus affects both eyes, provoking a different vision in them. Your symptoms may differ in each eye and vary over time.
In the first phase of the disease, the symptoms are the following:
- Slightly blurred or distorted vision.
- Hypersensitivity to light and glare eyepiece.
- Redness or inflammation in the eyes.
When keratoconus is in a more advanced phaseproduces these symptoms:
- Vision even more blurred and distorted than at the beginning of the disease.
- Increased nearsightedness or astigmatism, which may require a change in eyeglass prescription.
- Not being able to wear contact lenses, because they do not fit properly and the patient feels uncomfortable with them.
What causes keratoconus?
Today It is still not known for sure what are the causes what causes keratoconus.
However there are many factors associated with this disease, specifically the following:
- Genetic heritage. A large percentage of patients with keratoconus have relatives who also suffer or have suffered from this disease. It can be transmitted from parents to children, or be linked to other more complex inheritance patterns, in which transmission is more sporadic.
- Constant scratching of the eyes. Prolonged and vigorous scratching of the eyes can cause keratoconus. For this reason, it is a disease that can be associated, although indirectly, with some allergies that cause itchy eyes.
- Una excessive exposure to sunlight ultraviolets.
- Use of contact lenses they have not adapted well.
- Small trauma to the eye that persists.
- Eye irritation that does not go away.
- Diseases that alter systemic collagen.
- Hormonal factors.
Keratoconus is often associated with síndrome de Down and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
There is also a congenital malformation in which the bilateral keratoconus occupies the entire cornea, which becomes transparent and thins especially on the periphery. This pathology is known as keratoglobo, and should not be confused with the megalocornea that appears in the glaucoma congenital (known as buffalm).
Acceleration of keratoconus symptoms
It usually takes years for keratoconus to progress from the early to the advanced stage.
However, there are patients in whom the disease worsens more quickly, presenting a sudden inflammation in the cornea.
This is due to the breakage of the inner lining of the cornea, which allows fluid to enter it (known as dropsy or corneal hydrops).
Most often, this swelling goes away on its own. But in some patients a scar forms, especially where the cone protrudes the most, affecting vision.
The good news is that this situation can be corrected by performing the cornea transplant surgery. This intervention is increasingly safer and causes less rejection, which is why we are performing it more and more to treat keratoconus.
prevent keratoconus
It is not possible to prevent keratoconus, so it is advisable to have regular check-ups for early detection.
In addition to prevention through eye check-ups, it is advisable to follow some guidelines such as not rubbing your eyes on a regular basis, since as we have seen, this is one of the causes to which the disease is associated.
If this disease is suspected, it is essential go to an ophthalmology center as soon as possible, especially if the patient has relatives with keratoconus. As we have also pointed out, the genetic factor It is one of the causes with which the appearance of this disease is related.
Treatment according to the symptoms of keratoconus
El keratoconus treatment depends on whether an early diagnosis of the disease is made, since depending on how it has evolved, we will apply one treatment or another.
Depending on the evolutionary stage in which the keratoconus is found, your treatment options will be the following:
- At Lóleo Eventos, early stage only one is used Pharmacotherapy, formed by medications and artificial tears.
- When the disease passes to a next phase it is necessary to correct astigmatism with contact lenses. Wearing glasses is not enough at this point.
- Once you symptoms are aggravated of keratoconus is necessary make a keratoconus surgery. Currently there are modern and effective techniques that prevent or delay the cornea transplantand intracorneal ring implant, corneal crosslinking and intact, Among others.
