"I've always had perfect vision," said Jesus De Barros.
De Barros was driving to work when his world suddenly changed.
De Barros told Ivanhoe, "I looked to my right and I see all the traffic signs are blurry and I started freaking out."
His right eye wouldn't focus.
"So in order to see something it has to be really close up to the eye," said De Barros.
De Barros was finally diagnosed with keratoconus.
"Kerato means cornea, conus means cone," explained Inna Ozerov, M.D., a surgical ophthalmologist at Miami Eye Institute. (Read Full Interview)
Dr. Ozerov said one in 2,000 people in the United States have this condition.
"The clear part of the eye, the dome-shaped structure of the eye, the cornea, starts to lose its shape and become deformed," explained Dr. Ozerov.
That causes serious vision problems. As the cornea becomes thinner, vision gets worse.
Dr. Ozerov said, "Patients ended up needing corneal transplant surgery because that was the only option that was available to them."
Until now. The FDA recently approved a procedure called collagen cross-linking.
"I essentially remove the top layer of the cornea," detailed Dr. Ozerov.
Then she uses a liquid form of Vitamin B and a dose of ultraviolet light to stiffen the cornea.
"Therefore it doesn't allow the cornea to deform further," said Dr. Ozerov. "In some patients it can even improve their vision."
The recovery is much faster. A few days after the procedure, De Barros was back to work and driving.
"Eyesight is pretty much what I had before which is great," said De Barros.