Keratoconus treatment in Addison for when the lenses stopped working.
Scleral lenses can carry you a long way — until the wear time shortens, the fit fights back, and clear vision costs more discomfort than it returns. CTAK treats the cornea underneath rather than the lens on top of it.
You have been solving this at the lens. The problem is one layer down.
It is a familiar arc. Soft lenses stopped correcting, so you moved to rigid gas-permeable. Those got uncomfortable, so you moved to sclerals, and those worked — genuinely worked — for a while. Then the wear time started shrinking. Midday fogging. A fit that needs revisiting more often than it used to. Another lens redesign, another adjustment, another few months.
Specialty lenses are excellent at what they do, which is giving light a smooth surface to pass through. What they cannot do is change the cornea creating the irregularity. Past a point, refitting is managing a symptom at increasing cost — and around the Addison business district, where the day is screens and air conditioning, that cost lands during every working hour.
CTAK works at the cornea instead. A femtosecond laser shapes sterilized donor tissue to your individual corneal map, and that inlay is placed within your own cornea to round the cone back toward a more regular shape. Patients frequently still wear correction afterward — but a more regular cornea is a cornea that is easier to fit and more comfortable to wear against. Addison is about twenty minutes up the Tollway or the PGBT.
A lens can bridge an irregular cornea. It cannot make the cornea less irregular.
i.
Fit problems are cornea problems.
Shrinking wear time and repeated refits are usually the cornea talking. We map it before assuming the next lens design is the answer.
ii.
Shaped to your eye alone.
The CTAK inlay is laser-sculpted from your own corneal map — a custom geometry, not a standard ring in a few sizes.
iii.
Surgery and lenses, one team.
Reshaping and refitting are planned together here, so the lens that follows a procedure is fitted by people who know exactly what changed.
02/Beyond stabilizing
Keratoconus has three separate problems. Most clinics only treat one.
A cone-shaped cornea is progressive, it is irregular, and it is hard to correct. Those are three different problems. Cross-linking answers the first by halting progression. It does not answer the second — a stabilized cornea is still a distorted one.
CTAK answers the second. By adding laser-shaped donor tissue inside your own cornea, it works toward a more regular surface, which is what makes the third problem tractable: glasses and contacts start working again. Which combination your eye needs, and in what order, is what the consultation is for.
03/Treatment options
The pathway runs in order. Stabilize, reshape, refine.
Which of these your eye needs, and in what sequence, comes out of the corneal maps rather than off a menu. Cross-linking is the time-sensitive one. Reshaping can wait for a stable cornea, and usually should.
Reshape without a transplant
CTAK (Corneal Tissue Addition)
A piece of sterilized donor cornea, laser-shaped to the map of your own eye and placed inside your cornea to round the cone back toward its natural shape. Nothing is removed, so a transplant stays on the table rather than behind you.
The FDA-approved treatment that uses riboflavin and ultraviolet light to strengthen the collagen bonds holding your cornea's shape. It does not reverse keratoconus — it stops it getting worse, which is why timing matters more here than anywhere else.
Scleral and rigid gas-permeable lenses vault over an irregular cornea and give light a smooth surface to pass through. Often the bridge between diagnosis and stability — and, after CTAK, frequently easier to fit and wear.
Three steps, in this order. Skipping one is how people end up stuck.
Keratoconus care is a sequence, and the order is not arbitrary. Stabilizing a cornea that is still changing comes first, because reshaping one that has not settled does not hold. Each step below answers a different question about your eye.
Light and a woven pattern represent corneal cross-linking.First
Stop the progression
Corneal cross-linking strengthens the collagen bonds holding your cornea's shape. It is the time-sensitive step: it protects the cornea you still have rather than recovering the cornea you had.
Shaped donor tissue positioned within the cornea.Then
Reshape the cone
CTAK places a laser-shaped piece of sterilized donor tissue inside your own cornea, working the cone back toward a regular shape. Nothing of yours is removed, which is what separates it from a transplant.
A specialty lens arching over the corneal surface.Finally
Sharpen what is left
Once the cornea is stable and more regular, glasses or specialty lenses do the remaining work — and a more regular cornea is markedly easier to fit and more comfortable to wear against.
04/Getting here
The drive is the easy part.
The route
North on the Dallas North Tollway or east along the PGBT — about twenty minutes from Addison. Ground floor with free parking.
Plan about 60–90 minutes. Bring your current lenses and, if you have them, recent fitting notes — how the lens sits tells us as much as the topography does.
Open Monday–Friday 8:00–5:00 and Saturday 9:00–3:00, with English- and Spanish-speaking staff. Questions before booking? Call 214-972-2020 and a human answers.
05/FAQ
Questions patients ask, answered straight.
Don't see your question? Call 214-972-2020 or book a visit and ask Dr. Shehz directly.
My scleral lenses used to be comfortable. Why aren't they now?
Several possibilities, and they are worth separating: the cornea underneath may have continued to change, the ocular surface may have become dry, or the fit may have drifted. Mapping and a surface evaluation tell us which — and whether the answer is a refit, treatment of the surface, or addressing the cornea itself.
Will I still need lenses after CTAK?
Often, and the goal is that they work better. CTAK aims for a cornea regular enough that glasses or contacts correct comfortably again. Restoring correctable vision is the point; eliminating correction is not the promise.
Can CTAK make a scleral lens easier to fit?
A more regular corneal shape is generally a more fittable one. We plan the reshaping and the refit together, so whoever fits you afterward is working from a known change rather than starting over.
Is CTAK a corneal transplant?
No. A transplant replaces your cornea with donor tissue. CTAK adds a small, custom-shaped piece of sterilized donor tissue inside the cornea you already have, and removes none of your own.
How far is the clinic from Addison?
About twenty minutes via the Dallas North Tollway or the President George Bush Turnpike. Ground floor, free parking.
Does insurance cover keratoconus treatment?
Most medical plans cover FDA-approved cross-linking when keratoconus is documented as progressive. CTAK coverage varies by plan, and specialty lens coverage varies further. We verify benefits and quote any out-of-pocket portion in writing before anything is scheduled.
Still have questions?
Talk to our team, no pressure, no sales pitch. We answer the question, not the upsell.
Still refitting every few months? Ask what the cornea is doing.
Repeated lens revisions are a signal, not a routine. Topography establishes whether the cornea is still changing — and whether stabilizing it, reshaping it, or refitting it is the honest next step.
You have adjusted the lens enough. Look at what it is sitting on.
Corneal mapping, an ocular surface evaluation, and a clear answer about whether cross-linking, CTAK, or a better-planned refit is the right move. About twenty minutes from Addison. Call 214-972-2020 or book online.
Reshape without a transplant
Stop the progression
See clearly in the meantime
