UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Hi all, I am new to the forum. I have had KC for about 4 years now. NHS Did not seam interested (have seen them twice in four years). I Decided to take matters into my own hands and book an appointment with Accuvision in Leeds. They seam very professional and have been the only people I have spoken to so far that understand the symptoms of KC. They said that I was suitable for C3R and "a little bit of laser". The price for this is £2500. My mum insisted that I get an opinion from the consultant at the NHS. I managed to get him on the phone. He said that he may be able to offer CXL in his clinic in manchester (20/20 or faceandeye.couk). I have looked on their website it mentions the keraflex procedure. The cost of this is unknown to me at this point. My question is. Does anyone know what the success rates and failure rates of both procedures ? Has anyone actually had either procedure? what were the results.. Sorry If I am duplicating anything in this topic. I have been reading quite a few posts on here and can not really find an answer. My head is totally spinning! Many thanks in advance! So glad I'm not the only one out there!

Krolen

Cross linking - CXL - has been around for nearly 15 years and there have been follow up studies for almost 10 years and it is really accepted now that this procedure will halt the progression of keratoconus. It will not return your eyesight to normal but its success rate is excellent and many countries, such as Sweden, do this procedure as a matter of course.

KeraFlex is a very new procedure where an attempt is made to reshape the cornea using microwaves and then this is held in place using accelerated cross linking (KXL). Neither of these procedures have had more than a year follow up so success rates are difficult to talk about.

The T-CAT that Accuvision talk about has around 4 years of follow up and success rates have not been published to my knowledge.

If you can get CXL on the NHS then you are extremely lucky, as it is by not widely available yet.

I hope this helps lessen the confusion!

Lynn

Thank you, that is really helpful. I'm a little worried about in UV implications if I have the cross linking done before I go on holiday? is there a UV contact lens I could wear to protect my eye if i take off sunglasses?

Thanks in advance -)

Andy