Not all Keratoconus or Ectasia patients who visit our office have developed their eye disorder organically. Unfortunately, complications from Radial Keratotomy (RK) or Laser-assisted In Situ Keratomileusis (LASIK) procedures develop over time and distort the patient’s corneas. Many years after the procedures, Post-RK and Post-LASIK Ectasia and Keratoconus complications have become fairly common, resulting in High-Order Aberrations (HOAs), declining vision and growing dissatisfaction with the surgeries. While some Ophthalmologists treat these conditions with more surgery, at the California Keratoconus Center, we have developed non-surgical treatments for these patients, which result in better vision and greater patient satisfaction, all without the downsides and complications of surgery.

Post-RK and Post-LASIK Ectasia

Do you have Post-RK and Post-LASIK Ectasia and Keratoconus? Do you see streaks and glare? Trouble driving at night? The California Keratoconus Center can help.

What are RK and LASIK?

Radial Keratotomy (RK) became popular in the 1990s as a treatment for myopia and astigmatism. The surgery aimed to flatten the cornea by making radial incisions. Unfortunately, these incisions result in a permanently weakened cornea and a condition where the cornea continues to flatten or distort over time.

Some eye doctors tried to treat the complications of RK with LASIK. With LASIK, a laser is used to “ablate” (remove) some parts of your cornea in an effort to make your cornea’s shape more consistent. However, by removing microscopic layers of the cornea, the cornea becomes even weaker, and over time the patient’s vision deteriorates more rapidly than before.

Complications From RK and LASIK

Patients who have undergone both RK and LASIK procedures may end up with a variety of worsening symptoms, including:

  • HOAs with glare, starbursts and streaks
  • Double or triple vision
  • Poor night vision
  • Dry Eyes
  • Continually changing prescriptions
  • Inability to correct vision with conventional glasses or contact lenses
  • Emotional issues and depression

Attempting to correct the already-weakened corneas with additional surgeries is unwise.

Non-Surgical Treatment of Post-RK and Post-LASIK Ectasia and Keratoconus

At the California Keratoconus Center, we have developed a specialty in treating Keratoconus and other Corneal Ectasia with Scleral Contact Lenses. And with our wavefront technology, we can design scleral contact lenses that can almost totally correct most HOAs, giving our patients clearer vision, the ability to drive at night and a much brighter outlook on their future.

Scleral lenses differ from traditional contact lenses because they are much larger, extending far onto the eye’s white parts (the “sclera”). They also have several other very important features that make them ideal for treating Post-RK and Post-LASIK patients:

  • Scleral lenses never touch the cornea but instead “vault” over it.
  • The space between the back of the scleral lens and the cornea is filled with a clear saline solution. The result is that the lens and saline solution work together to create a lens designed to properly and precisely refract the light entering the eye.
  • This larger lens and saline solution serve as a protective shield, allowing your damaged corneas to heal with less irritation.
  • Scleral lenses are designed to sit on your eye in one specific orientation. Whereas conventional contact lenses are spherical and can therefore rotate on your eye, a properly designed scleral contact lens has an asymmetrical shape to match the asymmetrical sclera. It fits on your eye in only one orientation, much like a saddle on a horse.
  • Because we know that the lens will not rotate on your eye, we can design a lens specifically to correct the irregularities in your corneas, whether they are there naturally or were created by your RK and/or LASIK procedures.

How We Design Scleral Lenses for Post-RK and Post-LASIK Patients

We are one of about 35 vision centers in the country with an Eaglet Eye Surface Profiler. This machine allows us to map over 350,000 points on your eye, including 100% of your cornea and most of your sclera. The manufacturer of the Eaglet works with over 40 different contact lens manufacturers, importing the qualities and features of their different contact lenses into their software, allowing us to custom design a specific lens for a specific cornea with greater precision than ever before.

But Post-RK and Post-LASIK Ectasia and Keratoconus are very specific conditions, often resulting in the HOAs we referred to earlier. Our wavefront technology allows us to actually “see” the same aberrations you see, then build the correction for those aberrations into the lens. Because we know that the lens will not rotate on your eye, we know that these corrections will sit in precisely the right spot on your eye, which means that your HOAs may all but disappear.

And because Keratoconus and Ectasia patients are consistently frustrated by pain in their eyes, teary eyes, dry eyes, red eyes and a general frustration with their vision, comfort is as important as clarity. That’s why we examine every scleral lens under our high-powered microscope and OCT to ensure that the lens fits perfectly on your eye. How perfect? With a tolerance of +/- one micron. Compare that to human hair, which averages 100 microns in width.

Ectasia and Keratoconus Treatment Specialists

If you have Post-RK and Post-LASIK Ectasia and/or Keratoconus, we’d like to see you here at the California Keratoconus Center. We have been treating Keratoconus and other corneal Ectasias since the mid-1980s, shortly after Dr. Barry Leonard, the Director of the Center, was diagnosed with Keratoconus. We have the latest technology and are often asked by the manufacturers of the technology we use to train other doctors. We are a leader in non-surgical Keratoconus treatment and are ready to help you, too. Please make an appointment online or call us at 818-891-6711.