Keratoconus is a progressive eye condition that causes the cornea to thin and bulge into a cone-like shape, leading to distorted vision. In this informative video, Dr. Rachana Patel of Florida Eye Specialists breaks down the latest treatment options for keratoconus, from custom contact lenses to cutting-edge procedures like corneal cross-linking.
Patients searching for answers to “what is keratoconus?” or “keratoconus treatment near me” will gain clarity on how early diagnosis and expert care can slow disease progression and restore better vision. Dr. Patel emphasizes the importance of seeing a corneal specialist for tailored care that addresses the severity of your condition.
Video Transcript
Initially, keratoconus can just be a few changes in vision that are corrected with glasses. But at some point, glasses cannot fully correct or improve your vision, and at that point we switch over to soft contact lenses. In some patients, we might have to switch over to hard contact lenses, or large new contact lenses called scleral contact lenses, to improve vision. Once contact lenses cannot improve your vision, we have you consider collagen cross-linking: we use a special eye drop with special UV light and we stiffen the cornea, so we prevent it from getting more cone-shaped or more bulged over the upcoming years. So we stop the disease process, and that’s really exciting, because now, instead of jumping to a transplant, we can avoid it for many, many years — or sometimes you may never need a transplant because of the collagen cross-linking treatment. Florida Eye Specialists is one of the only practices in Northeast Florida that offers this treatment for keratoconus, so we have patients coming from far away — from South Georgia, from Orlando, even down south — to have this treatment done. That is the most exciting treatment option now available for keratoconus. Some of the other options include Intacs — small curved plastic devices that we insert within the cornea to flatten the cone, so that you can maybe go back into your contact lenses or just use glasses and avoid the need for a transplant. So we are very excited that we can now offer something less invasive and more permanent for patients with advanced keratoconus.
