Keratoconus, Are you in any danger?
Keratoconus is defined by an irregular thinning and bulging out the cornea. The cornea is the first lens that bends and focuses the light when it first enters the eye. It works with the lens on the inner portion of the eye to enable us to see clearly. Thus a thinning and bulging of the cornea causes some major issues in vision of those affected.
Is there anything it can do to you?
The cone effect can also cause an irregular astigmatism that warps the surface of the eye and is unable to be corrected. It can also cause a higher dependence on near vision as the eyes become more cone shaped.
Treatments
Until keratoconus is severe there are more management options for patients such as needing rigid gas permeable contacts or scleral contacts instead of soft contacts or corneal collagen cross linking. Advanced stages of keratoconus may also require corneal transplants about 20% of the time.
Causes:
Eye rubbing, chronic contact use, exposure to UV rays, if you have many allergies are environmental factors that increase your likelihood of keratoconus.
Genetic component: There is also a genetic inheritance factor that is not fully understood. There are several gene regions that are known to affect different ethnicities. Once a family that shows keratoconus heritability they have to look for specific genes that repeat in those who have keratoconus but aren't as common in those not diagnosed. Due to the candidate genes being so large they really have to narrow down what they are looking for genetically which can become complicated and expensive to reproduce in knockout mice for example.
Successful genetic links:
Interleukin 1 receptor antagonist (IL1RN) and solute carrier family 4 member 11 ( SLC4A11) genes have been seen with a higher frequency in keratoconus family members than those without the diagnosis.
There are several studies that have found changes in the mitochondrial DNA relate higher in association with keratoconus due to increased oxidative stress. This problem is especially relevant due to the corneas exposure to UV light which increases the rate of the redox reactions.
Ask not what your body and do for you but what you can do for your body!
While we can not change our genetic predisposition to keratoconus, we can be mindful about how we take care of our corneas. This means not rubbing our eyes or if you must raise corneas up or down rub the sclera to avoid damage to one of the most important parts of your eye.
Wearing ultraviolet protective sunglasses just like you should do for your skin, your eyes need it too. Translucent UV protective layers are also available at most eye glasses and lastly eat antioxidants to reduce redox reactions in the body!
This is very good to know! Is there any way to correct it with Lasic vision surgery to smooth out the bumps in the cornea? I wonder if using blue light glasses would help too in order to take stress off the eye.
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