Thursday, December 8, 2011

Ortho-k + Corneal Cross-Linking

Ortho-k is a non-surgical way of going glasses-free during the day. Wear "retaining" lenses at night, wake up 20/20. I've blogged about it repeatedly (just search this site with the box in the upper left for "ortho-k") and we perform this procedure in our office with a high success rate.

Corneal cross linking is a procedure that uses riboflavin eye drops and UV light exposure to stiffen corneal stromal fibers. Its currently a treatment for arresting keratoconus progression.

Well Dr. Sami El-Hage (a pioneer in ortho-k and one of the most interesting people I have ever met) has proposed combining the two; the idea being to initially get the patient seeing well with ortho-k, then perform the cross-linking procedure to make it permanent or semi-permanent. This article is kind of technical, but SUPER INTERESTING (to me, anyway b/c I'm nerdy & into this stuff!):

ortho-k + corneal cross linking

4 comments:

  1. hey doc, like reading your stuff but never needed to write in before till now. I suffer from mild pinguculas in sides of both eyes and am noticing that after an hour my 'dailies' aquacomfort 1 day disposible contacts are really irritating me. my presc. is -1.75 8.8 and 14cyc in both. Are there any daily style contacts best suited for pingcs?

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  2. IMO people with pingueculae need low modulus. So that only disqualifies acuvue trueye.

    If the aquacomfort are bothering you, try a different daily. To answer your question: "no", there is no daily that is a "go-to" lens for pingueculae. Just hafta try some until you hopefully find one that doesn't bother you

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  3. First of all, I just started reading your blog and I think you and your information is nothing less than amazing.

    I have a question though- If this ortho-k has been around a while now, why has my eye doctor never suggested it? I am a 20 year old male, with horrendously dry eyes (which make comfortable contacts practically non existant). I have a pretty strong prescription (my contacts at -6.00 and -5.50). Also, I have a slight astigmatism and I am nearsighted.

    I read that article you posted about this, and with all honesty, I didn't understand it completely. Is there anything that would automatically make me a bad candidate for this? Right now, all of my research has told me that there is nothing that would make me a bad candidate (unlike with my dry eyes making me bad for lasik).

    Thanks!

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  4. you're not an awesome ortho-k candidate, that's probably why your doc has never brought it up. I don't like doing ortho-k over about -4.50 and I pretty much refuse to do it over about -5.00

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