Frequent eye rubbing — particularly by children and young people with eye allergies — can contribute to keratoconus, a progressive condition that thins and distorts the cornea, a consultant cornea surgeon has warned. Doctors in Sri Lanka are now detecting it in children as young as seven.
Consultant Cornea Surgeon Dr. Kusum Ratnayaka issued the warning to mark World Keratoconus Day on Tuesday, urging people with itchy eyes to seek medical advice rather than rubbing them repeatedly, the Daily Mirror reported at 6.11 a.m. on Wednesday in a filing by Chaturanga Pradeep Samarawickrama.
“People who frequently rub their eyes or suffer from allergic eye conditions should be alert to the possibility of keratoconus,” Dr. Ratnayaka said.
The condition is increasingly being detected among Sri Lankans, including schoolchildren, the National Eye Hospital has cautioned.
What the condition does
The cornea is the clear, dome-shaped front surface of the eye. Normally it has a smooth, rounded surface that focuses light onto the retina. In keratoconus it gradually thins and bulges outwards into a cone shape, scattering the light and producing blurred, distorted vision. In advanced cases it can make everyday tasks such as reading and driving difficult.
It mainly affects people between 15 and 25, and commonly develops during adolescence and early adulthood. Detection in children of seven or eight is what has raised concern among specialists — a decade earlier than the condition’s usual window.
The warning sign parents are most likely to see
The practical advice in the filing is aimed at parents, and it turns on something ordinary rather than dramatic.
Frequent changes in spectacle prescriptions can be an early sign, Dr. Ratnayaka said, particularly in children. Parents should be alert if a child repeatedly needs new spectacles, or keeps having vision problems despite wearing them.
Other symptoms include blurred vision, difficulty seeing at night, halos around lights, and a difference in vision between the two eyes.
People with itchy eyes caused by allergies, or with dry-eye symptoms, should get the irritation treated rather than rubbing — treating the itch is what breaks the cycle.
Where it should be caught
Doctors have stressed the role of school medical and vision-screening programmes, pointing specifically to the examinations conducted among children in Grades 1, 4 and 7. Those are the existing checkpoints at which an early case could be picked up.
Early detection matters because the damage accumulates. Spectacles may correct vision in the early stages; specialised contact lenses may be needed as the condition advances.
Corneal collagen cross-linking strengthens the cornea and can stop or slow the progression. Patients whose keratoconus is advanced may require a corneal transplant.
Specialists have urged parents to watch for frequent eye rubbing, repeated prescription changes and difficulty seeing clearly, and to arrange an eye examination if those appear.
Not reported
The filing gives no figures — no number of cases detected in Sri Lanka, no trend data, and nothing to show whether detection in young children is genuinely rising or simply being picked up more often now that clinicians are looking for it. The distinction matters for reading the warning, and the filing does not address it.
It does not say where the paediatric cases were identified, whether cross-linking is available in the state sector or what it costs, how long the waiting list for corneal transplants is, or whether the Grades 1, 4 and 7 screenings currently test for corneal shape at all rather than visual acuity alone. No official from the Health Ministry is quoted, and no national screening policy change is announced.
A note on sourcing: this article rests on a single verified newsroom. A World Keratoconus Day advisory is the kind of item other outlets often do not carry, and searches found no independent account of Dr. Ratnayaka’s warning.