Overview Of Corneal Diseases
A lot many diseases come under the term "corneal diseases". The cornea is the crucial part of our eye that controls the focusing system by making the light refract into our eyes. When the cornea is affected, a particular person will face problems like cloudy images, eye pain, light sensitivity, headache, nausea, red-eye, watery eye and so on.
Causes of corneal disease:
A wide range of conditions can cause corneal diseases. Corneal diseases can occur due to severe injury, hereditary, trauma, infection, allergy, mal-nutrition, etc.
Symptoms:
- Chronic eye pain
- Blurry images
- Redness around the cornea, conjunctival congestion
- Too watery or too dry eyes
- Any eye injury / scratches
- Itchy or irritant eyes
Types of corneal disease:
- Pink Eye (an allergic reaction or conjunctivitis that can harm the cornea)
- Corneal Abrasion(injured or scratched cornea)
- Keratitis / Corneal Ulcer
- Keratoconus / Conical Cornea (thinning of the cornea)
- Ocular Herpes / Eye Herpes(cornea infection by the virus)
- Corneal Dystrophy(hereditary corneal malfunction)
Some other corneal diseases are dry eye, intraocular endothelial syndrome, stevens-johnson syndrome, pterygium, map-dot-fingerprint dystrophy etc.
Prevention
A regular eye checkup by an eye specialist is the best option for preventing severe corneal diseases. Some preventive measures should be maintained to protect the cornea i.e. - maintaining hygiene, wearing sunglasses in the sun, inclusion of green vegetables in your daily diet, a little exercise for a healthy life, take a break from continuous computer work etc.
Treatment
- Medication : Most of the corneal diseases are treatable with medications (topical and oral).
- Laser Surgery : LASIK, PRK are used to correct refractive errors to get rid of thick glases. Go specs free with LASIK.
- Corneal Transplant : Transplant is a sensitive surgery to re-correct corneal injury. It is only possible when someone donates a healthy cornea. Optical keratoplasty is done to improve vision in non-infected eyes whereas therapeutic keratoplasty is done to maintain ocular integrity in case of perforated corneal ulcers.
- Artificial Cornea : Keratoprosthesis (Kpro) is an artificial cornea. It is another way of surgery to rectify damaged cornea.
- Corneal Cross-Linking : Cross-Linking is a surgical process where UV rays are used to reinforce the corneal collagen to prevent corneal thinning in keratoconus.
