Somewhere, early to mid 2017 I went to my optometrist for a regular checkup. He said that it looks like I might have keratoconus.He said he's not 100% sure, but he was pretty confident. He wanted to give it six months to see if it really is.
Then about three months later I noticed my vision was getting worse so I decided to go back for another eye exam and he informed that, yes, I do have keratoconus.
That's when we decided about treatments and doctors. Apparently there is a new procedure call riboflavin-based corneal crosslinking that helps slow down or stop the progression of keratoconus. We decided it's risky because it's a new procedure. It's only about 20 years old, so nobody knows the risk 50 years down the line. But we decided it's better to go with a risk like that than with the near-certainty of eventually going blind.
At first we discussed going to Europe for treatment because this treatment started in Europe. We thought, since it's such a new procedure they probably know it better than anybody. But then we decided that going with the right doctor in the US is going to be just as good. That's when we decided to start going for consultations about crosslinking. We went to five doctors. Going in, we were pretty certain we were getting the procedure, but it's just a question of which doctor. Given that this is an issue with my eyes, I wanted to be extra-certain that it's a doctor I could communicate with and whom I trusted morally, ethically and technically.
Some doctors were better than others. In the end we went with one who was very good who went over and beyond and was very detail-oriented. Plus, she works with a university, so she's always studying the newest treatments for keratoconus. She was the best of doctors we saw.
