Glaucoma is a group of chronic (long-lasting) medical diseases that permanently damage the collection of nerves referred to as the "optic nerve" that carry visual information from your eye to your brain.
The tricky part? Glaucoma usually doesn't cause early symptoms. For most patients with glaucoma, the condition is painless. The disease itself can be silent in its early and even moderate stages. Typically, vision loss starts slowly and individuals with glaucoma will not notice their glaucoma getting worse until it is advanced. However, once vision is lost from glaucoma it is generally believed to be impossible to recover, and you can go blind from leaving it untreated.
Because of its silent nature, glaucoma is often referred to as "the thief of sight." This is the main reason why regular eye exams are so important — they are the only way to catch glaucoma in its early stages.
The only thing that we can change about your eyes that has been found to slow down glaucoma is managing and monitoring something referred to as your "intraocular pressure." This is the pressure inside your eye. In general, a pressure reading of 10-21 is "normal" for the average individual, the lower the better. However, if you are diagnosed with glaucoma, or if you have glaucoma and your tests look like they are getting worse, we may need to lower your eye pressure further below your current pressure, even if it is in the normal range. We will use laser therapy treatments, prescribe chronic use of eye drops, or, in advanced cases, employ surgery, to lower your eye pressure and thereby reduce the chance of your glaucoma getting worse.
Glaucoma can affect anyone, but in general, it has been found to develop more often in people with a family history of glaucoma, in specifically shaped eyes (which we identify with testing in our clinic), and in individuals with certain medical conditions such as diabetes or migraine headaches.
There are different forms of glaucoma, each with their own scales of severity, which we discuss in greater detail in other posts on our website.
The good news: with early detection and treatment, most people can keep their vision.
Takeaway: The best way to protect yourself is with regular eye exams — even if your vision feels fine today. </content>