My Experience with Keratoconus and Crosslinking

At the young age of 13-14 years of age I started complaining that every time when I looked left I would get a blurry vision compared to my right vision. I complained to my parents about having blurry vision and how I was getting headaches associated to it, but they did not believe me at first, I did not have official confirmation of keratoconus until the age of 16-17 when I had an eye test before I could join the army.

I had excellent vision on my right eye and a deteriorating vision on my left eye which had stopped progression at that point. It was then that I got diagnosed with keratoconus which was a very rare case then here in Gibraltar and there wasn't much that could be done, at the time all they could do was prescribe me with a hard lens and solution which I could not wear because my eye would reject the hard lens. This would make it extremely uncomfortable to wear.

Years after this assessment In 2012-2013 I heard of the new procedure called "corneal cross linking" which was being done in Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. I asked my local GP if it would be possible for me to have the procedure done and arranged for me to be sent to Moorfields. I went to Moorfields eye hospital twice, on my first visit they too confirmed that my left eye had keratoconus and right eye had very mild keratoconus but overall excellent vision on that eye. On my second visit they noticed that the thinning of my cornea had worsened and my vision too as a result, so 3-4 months later I had my corneal crosslinking procedure done to my left eye. The procedure itself was quite strange because even though I couldn't feel anything done to my eye I could see the whole operation.

Once the procedure was done which only took approximately 30-40 min. I was given plenty of different types of eye drops which I had to use on a daily basis every time the eye dried up and the discomfort started to affect my eye which made the first day very uncomfortable with plenty of tears and an irritated eye as if sand had gone into my eye, but luckily with the drops day by day it got better. A few months later I went to my local GP in Gibraltar and had my eye tested whilst wearing my soft contact lens, it seems the procedure had worked strengthening the cells on my cornea and thanks to the eye test it came out at 20/20 vision.

The annoying thing about this condition is explaining to others what keratoconus is and what effects it has on people, the common question people ask is: why don't you wear glasses? I have to keep pointing out that for this condition you need special contact lenses. Of course only people suffering from this condition can really relate more to the subject.

I definitely recommend to people suffering from this condition to go and get the corneal crosslinking done.

By Raymond Risso