the vision in people with keratoconus is actually pretty unique it's like having astigmatism
amplified and so this video i wanted to go over how you
see what the vision is like if you have keratoconus let's focus in
hey howdy everybody this is Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, with the show that keeps your eyes
healthy and your vision clear and i do videos all about the eyes educational videos like this one
so make sure that you're subscribed so you don't miss any of my future videos now let's talk about
keratoconus vision the cornea of the eye is a nice clear tissue right on the front part of the
eye and it's actually what you see out of that's actually where people wear a contact lens right on
the surface of the cornea and the cornea should have a nice smooth round shape to it sometimes
it can have a certain curvature to it which can be called regular astigmatism but sometimes if
you're unlucky sometimes that cornea can actually progressively thin or bulge out causing a cone
shape or keratoconus and this can cause irregular astigmatism which can cause more unique
blurry visual symptoms that i wanted to go over a lot of the visual symptoms that people have
with keratoconus are similar to people that have regular astigmatism or nearsightedness
farsightedness where they just have blurry vision now keratoconus kind of takes it a step further
where they have blurry vision at distance and at near and intermediate kind of like
astigmatism can affect your distance vision near vision all around when you have irregular
astigmatism it's a little bit amplified so your vision is blurry distance near intermediate
all distances can be blurry now one common visual symptom that people with keratoconus
will talk about all the time is how lights look especially lights at nighttime headlights street
lights when they're driving the lights are almost distorted and people with regular astigmatism
might have the symptom as well where they'll look at a light at nighttime and they'll see
streaks coming out of that light that's because of that curved shape of the cornea kind of stretches
and bends that light a little weird people with keratoconus have those symptoms a little bit
amplified so they might have that streak as well as other streaks coming from different
angles different locations also they might have on top of that a little bit more glare
or halos coming out of that light and so that light is really distorted with multiple streaks
different types of halos that are coming from that light because that cone shape on that cornea is
just bending and distorting that light that's getting to the back of the eye along the same
lines of those symptoms people also talk about having ghost images with lights or maybe even
normal images maybe if they're looking at a screen or maybe a person maybe a person's hand you can
use this as an example but people with astigmatism might have that ghost image as well where they're
looking at something maybe this hand and they almost see another hand or a ghost hand that's
right next to it and people with astigmatism will have that but people with keratoconus will have
that amplified and sometimes they'll talk about having triple ghost images meaning they might
have a ghost image coming out in one direction and then they have another ghost image coming
out in a different direction or maybe they even have more than triple they they have many ghost
glare images coming from one subject that they're looking at so if you look at my hand you might see
multiple hands or ghost images coming from just this hand and they'll drive people crazy because
it looks like the vision's distorted and this is also seen at night part of the reason why people
have those light symptoms of glare and streaks and ghost images and so it drives people crazy
that have keratoconus a good way that you can tell if you have astigmatism or keratoconus in large
amounts is if you cover one eye and you still see that double image or that ghost image there's a
good chance that you have regular astigmatism or irregular astigmatism keratoconus hey just really
quick if you're finding value from this video make sure you hit that like button that tells
youtube that these videos are worth making also if you want to check out my video about regular
astigmatism i'll put that link up there as well as in the description below now here are some visual
symptoms that are more unique to people that have keratoconus or irregular astigmatism because they
have that amplified distortion streaks glare of light sometimes that can actually cause
light sensitivity because the light that's being bent into the eye is getting scattered and pushed
everywhere sometimes it actually can bug people and actually cause them to be light sensitive
they can even be light sensitive at night time because all the headlights and street lights
are just being distorted and pushed everywhere it makes it very difficult not only to see
but sometimes it can actually cause the eyes to be light sensitive and sometimes painful keratoconus
is one of those diseases that can progressively get worse and sometimes progressively get worse
at a faster pace and so sometimes people with keratoconus will notice that their vision
changes or their prescription for their glasses or their contacts change pretty rapidly sometimes
it's actually every six months sometimes sooner people need to come back and actually update their
contacts or their prescription so they can see clear it's because that cone of that cornea is
progressively getting thinner and coneing out a little bit more it's bending light a little bit
more and so the blur is getting worse and worse at a fast pace now luckily keratoconus has that age
range of when it actually progressively gets worse and then it slows way down but that's one symptom
you want to look out for if your prescription is constantly changing your astigmatism is constantly
changing this could be a keratoconus symptom now one thing that's annoying with keratoconus
is that sometimes it actually can be difficult to get very clear vision or clear your vision up with
glasses or normal soft contact lenses because you have irregular astigmatism that glasses doesn't
bend the light correctly for the cone of your eye normal soft contacts don't like to fit or
lay over the cone of your eye and so sometimes you'll notice that to get the best vision you kind
of have to use specialty contacts hard contact lenses that you can custom fit over that cone so
you can actually see your clearest people that have regular astigmatism tend to do fine with
glasses or soft contact lenses that are made for astigmatism people with keratoconus have a
very difficult time clearing their vision up with normal glasses or normal contacts now if you are
having any of these symptoms where you have blur in all distances lights have streaks or halos or
you're seeing ghost images double triple ghost images definitely go in get your eyes checked
by your eye doctor because you can definitely be seeing clearer depending on what condition
you have hey thanks for watching i hope this video helped people understand what keratoconus vision
is really like i'm Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, focusing on you and your eyes stay focused make
sure you check out my other videos right there and i'll see you in the next video