CXL will reduce cylindrical power by couple of diopters
Posted: Sun 16 Nov 2008 6:37 pm
by naveed
The following website is promoting CXL as it will reduce cylindrical power by couple of diopters.
But to my understanding its not possible ,,,, CXL only stops or slows KC
http://www.neeraeyeclinic.com/C3R.html
Any View
Re: CXL will reduce cylindrical power by couple of diopters
Posted: Mon 17 Nov 2008 1:12 am
by rosemary johnson
"Reducing cylindrical power" means "making it slightly less astigmatic".
I don't know why they are saying this - I can imagine that CCL/CXL/C3R might help to iron out a few of the irregularities of a KC cornea, so it would be more like an "ordinary" astigmatic cornea.
But then...... to me, looking out of it, my grafted eye appears to be getting more and more astigmatic all the time and the cylinder figure is going down. SO, what do I know?!
THey are wrong to say that C3R is the only thing that can slow or halt the progression of KC. FOr lots of people, their KC just stabilises anyway - it stops progressing, wither for a number of years before getting any worse, or it just stops and stays where it is and never gets worse.
Also hydrops can and do thicken and stiffen the cornea just like C3R aims to do, and so can and do slow or halt progression (again, sometimes "for a while" and sometimes it's enough to stop the KC).
At one time, they used to try to induce hydrops artificially specifically to try to strengthen the cornea and slow progression. The idea is, when the rupture heals over, the scar tissue over where the rupture was is thicker than that part of the cornea was before. Unfortunately, the process wasn't always as easy to control as thye'd like.
I don't know of any cases of KC being "cured" completely - but I suppose it's possible if it was in the very early stages with only a very slight amount of vision correction required that it may appear to have done so by removing the need for glasses/lenses.
Rosemary