In my senior year of high school my new optometrist, Dr. Barry Leonard, diagnosed me with keratoconus. While I was glad to have found out the cause of ...

As the inventor of the first hybrid contact lens with FDA-clearance specifically designed for patients with keratoconus, SynergEyes supports the mission of the NKCF to improve the quality of life of persons with keratoconus by making educational material available to them, their families and their eye care professionals.

The ClearKone® lens by SynergEyes is specifically designed to restore vision to patients with keratoconus and other types of corneal irregularities.  Because the lens vaults over the cornea, there’s minimal risk of corneal scarring, making ClearKone® a healthy treatment option for keratoconus.  In addition, the soft skirt of the ClearKone® design provides all-day comfort ...

Melanie's Keratoconus Story

I live inside an impressionist painting, where colors smear across the canvas and ghost images hover around any large object I can actually identify. At night, my world is ablaze with eight-pointed stars that spring from every source of light – headlights, streetlamps, neon signs and even candles on the altar at church. When I try to focus on your face, I see a double image of your features; your eyes and nose and mouth run together like melting wax. Like a blind person, I focus on your voice, your height and weight, and the way you move. I miss seeing you smile and roll your eyes and grimace – all the nuances that nurture communication. Because I can’t see you clearly, I often misunderstand. I’m a writer and graphic designer, but I can’t read the words on the monitor as I type them. I can’t read ...

Cassidy Randle was a successful college student looking to go to nursing school, after graduation. Just as any young girl, she wanted to get rid of her glasses and therefore underwent refractive eye surgery in 2003. Initially her vision was okay and then it started deteriorating. In no time she was almost blind in her left eye and had poor vision in ...

Abstract:

The purpose of this work was to identify potential tear-film based proteins expressed in keratoconus.

Recruited subjects were normal GP contact lens wearers, keratoconus subjects wearing GP contact lenses, and keratoconus subjects without contact lenses. Subjects wearing soft lenses or having previous ocular surgeries were excluded from participating. Approximately 5 microliters of tears were sampled from both eyes of each subject using glass microcapillaries. Additional testing included a brief history, visual acuity, slit lamp examination, and topography. Proteomic analyses used to compare samples included Bradford assays, cytokine arrays, SDS-PAGE, and mass spectrometry.

Forty-four subjects were enrolled in the study including 20 normals (GP wearers-controls), 18 with keratoconus and wearing GPs, and six with keratoconus (non-lens wearers). Across all proteomic approaches, several proteins were identified as possibly being unique to keratoconus. Increased expression of matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) was found in keratoconus subjects with and without GP contact lenses ...

Keratoconus is a bilateral, progressive corneal thinning disorder which manifests as irregular, asymmetric astigmatism. Symptoms include blurred, subacute distorted vision which is usually more pronounced in one eye than the other. Refraction is often difficult and patients may not be adequately corrected with spectacles. Contact lenses are the best form of visual correction in most cases of clinically significant keratoconus. There are many different types of contact lenses available for keratoconus. Depending on the degree of clinical significance, lifestyle and ocular health, the optimal contact lens can be determined for each patient. This article describes the different design options currently available, along with the goals to keep in mind when fitting these patients.

Soft Toric Lenses

Many times, patients in the early stages of keratoconus do well with soft lenses. A satisfactory baseline refraction, which will most likely have a moderate amount of cylinder, is necessary in ...

Waltham, MA—A thermo-biomechanical system (Vedera, Avedro) for performing a proprietary procedure (Keraflex) to flatten the cornea in the treatment of myopia and keratoconus has received the European Union (EU) CE mark.

“CE mark certification is an important milestone for the company and also represents a vital new offering to ophthalmic patients and their physicians,” said David Muller, PhD, president and chief executive officer of Avedro.

Through the noninvasive, incisionless procedure performed by the device, the cornea is thermally remodeled without the removal of any tissue, thereby inducing refractive change without weakening the cornea’s biomechanical integrity.

In its European clinical trials for the correction of myopia and the treatment of keratoconus, the company has investigated a two-step procedure whereby the cornea is flattened to achieve refractive correction while concomitant collagen crosslinking stabilizes the cornea.

“The . . . procedure, by thermally altering the tension of collagen fibers, induces a corneal flattening ...

Keratoconus causes progressive thinning and distortion of the cornea that affects approximately 1 in every 2000 people.  It tends to affect younger people sometimes starting in the early teen years and progresses most rapidly through the fourth decade.  As the dystrophy progresses the cornea takes on an irregular cone like shape and may develop scar tissue.  The changes in the cornea seen in keratoconus lead to “irregular astigmatism.”  Irregular astigmatism means that light is not able to focus on the retina even with the use of glasses or traditional soft contact lenses.

The primary treatment options fall into two categories:  contact lenses and surgery.  This article outlines both options.

In the very early stages of keratoconus patients may notice a change in their prescription glasses or contact lenses.  Often times what is seen is an increase in astigmatism.  If the keratoconus progresses only minimally, ...