What is keratoconus? The eye condition Stephen Curry suffers from which could have derailed his career with the Warriors
The four-time champion had learned to compensate for blurry vision before treatment gave him a clearer view
Stephen Curry built his reputation on making some of the most difficult shots basketball has ever seen, yet part of that career was spent dealing with a vision problem he did not fully understand.
The Golden State Warriors star has opened up about being diagnosed with keratoconus, an eye condition that can cause blurred or distorted vision as the cornea thins and begins to bulge outward.
Curry said he had experienced symptoms for years without realizing they were connected to a specific condition.
“I knew I had blurry vision,” Curry said. “What’s it called? Ghosting, where you kind of see shadows, light sensitivity, headaches, all that type of stuff? But you chalk that up to a lot of different things.”
The issue came into sharper focus during the 2018-19 season, when former Warriors general manager Bob Myers noticed Curry squinting on the bench and encouraged him to have his eyes examined.
That appointment eventually led to the diagnosis and to Curry beginning to wear contact lenses.
Curry had been compensating without realizing it
The discovery gave Curry an explanation for symptoms he had simply learned to live with.
He compared the experience to the moment many people have after receiving glasses or contacts for the first time.
“I know everybody who’s worn glasses or contacts or had prescriptions done, or had that ‘Aha!’ moment of like, ‘Oh, this is what the world really looks like,’” Curry said.
Curry had already spent years adjusting naturally to what he was seeing, but he recognized that approach could not continue indefinitely.
The diagnosis also brought some relief because it replaced uncertainty with a condition that could be monitored.
“I didn’t even know what the word meant,” Curry said. “I didn’t know how to spell it.”
Doctors told him regular examinations would become part of his routine.
“They said, ‘You’ve got to get checked every six months, make sure it’s not progressing,’” Curry said.
Vision carries different stakes for an elite shooter
Any eye condition can affect everyday life, but Curry’s profession makes the issue particularly significant.
His game depends on recognizing defenders, reading spacing and processing movement in fractions of a second before releasing the ball.
“Anything that’s sensitive to your vision, you’re kind of on a little bit of an alert,” Curry said. “Especially as an athlete with my way to play the game, see the court … it is a new normal of stuff you have to do to make sure you’re taking care of yourself.”
Curry has since partnered through his Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation with Glaukos, an ophthalmic medical technology company for which he is a paid spokesperson, to bring more attention to keratoconus.
During a recent event, he even turned the condition’s complicated name into a lighthearted lesson.
“You want me to use it in a sentence?” Curry asked reporters.
“It’s important to go see your healthcare provider, get your eyes checked. Because you could have keratoconus.”
Curry believes the condition receives far less attention than it should.
“It’s not really talked about as much,” he said. “So I’m blessed with a platform, and obviously the right partner, to kind of talk about it in a way that’s meaningful, impactful.”
