post-Lasik Corneal Neuropathy Treated with GVR Scleral Lens

This is a photo of me with my patient Jakob who recently visited our practice from Copenhagen, Denmark. Jakob suffers from post-LASIK corneal neuropathy. 4 years ago, Jakob underwent LASIK surgery. 1 year later unrelenting pain developed ” beneath my eyes” according to Jakob. Jakob’s eye pain was worse indoors and when he got tired, but was always there. Jakob never suffered any form of eye pain before undergoing LASIK surgery. Back home in Denmark, Jakob was dismissed by a number of physicians who told him that there was nothing wrong with his eyes. As Jakob’s despair and depression deepened, he decided to look into scleral lens technology to give him relief from his eye pain. Last week, we fit Jakob with GVR Scleral lenses. With these lenses, Jakob no longer is experiencing any eye discomfort or pain. Besides seeing clearly, he is able to wear these lenses comfortably all day. According to Dr. Perry Rosenthal, professor of ophthalmology at Harvard University Medical School, the cornea is the most powerful pain generator in the human body. The density of corneal pain receptors has been estimated to be 40 times that of dental pulp. In my opinion, It was damage to the corneal nerves in Jakob’s corneas that created Jakob’s symptoms. The scleral lenses that Jakob is now wearing is vaulting over the compromised cornea and protecting it from the environment and the blinking action of the eyelids. The space between the back surface of the scleral lens and the front surface of the cornea is filled with unpreserved saline solution. In other words, Jakob’s corneas are always in a liquid environment. I expect Jakob to be wearing his scleral lenses comfortably with clear vision and without any eye pain for many years to come.