corneal transplant?

quist349

my son also has herpetic kiratitis and they say eventually he will need a transplant.I'll have to do some checking into for the name of this eye drop he was perscribed last year it was to reduce the scar tissue on the cornea.unfortunatlly it had to be give once every hour and it was near impossible to get a small boy to cooperate plus during school time ect ect. maybe you could look into other options. what kind of eye doc are you seeing? Do they use the floresent eye drop and the special black light to look at the eye? This is the ONLY way they can truly see the damage and weather or not it is active (Having an ob) make sure your doc specializes
in ocular herpes and/or dieases of the eye,they are the only one qualified to make accurate decisions. good luck

Belle2003

I had a cornea transplant in January of 2003. I had herpes in my eye as a child. My parents thought that I was around six when it happened. I am now 46, so their memory isn't the greatest. I looked at school pictures where in the first grade my eye was clear and in second grade it was foggy. My cornea was so scarred that I could not even see the letter E at the doctor's office. The doctor was hesitant to do the operation because the brain does not fully make all the connections to the eye until the age of 5. If something happens to your vision before the brain has fully made all of the eye to brain connections, then your vision can never been repaired.

I was crossing my fingers that my eye to brain connections were fully developed.

The operation is easy. It is on a outpatient basis. You only might need Tylenol for a couple of days. (Believe me I am no hero.) For a month your eye will be slightly sensitive to the light, so you will need sunglasses when outside. It will be slightly blood shot for a month or two. You have to take antibiotic drops daily for a couple of weeks. You cannot lift anything heavy or do situps, or strenuous activity for three months. You take anti-rejection drops for one year. In the beginning it is several times a day, winding down to one drop a day. After a year you do not use any drops whatsoever. My doctor has me taking Acyclovir daily for 18 months to prevent a herpes outbreak on my operated eye. I have not had a outbreak in over 30 years.

I seems that my eye did not make the brain to eye connections in time. My vision will never be the same as my good eye. However, my vision is better than it was before & I can read 4 to 5 lines down past the letter E. I do feel relieved that if something was to happen to harm my good eye, at least now I can see better than I did before out of my bad eye. I was disappointed that I did not have better results. My husband's co-worker had cornea transplants done on both of her eyes and she now has 20/20 vision. Her success is what encouraged me to go through with the operation. She did not lose her vision until she was in her thirties.

If you and your doctor believe that you had the eye to brain connections in your eye before the cornea scarring, then I would not hestitate to get the transplant. I hope I answered all of your questions.