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Glaucoma: The Silent Thief of Sight
Glaucoma is an eye disease that
slowly and painlessly steals away
your sight. Glaucoma is called the
silent thief of sight because it has no
symptoms—it does not make your
eyes red or cause pain. But it is the
second leading cause of blindness in
the United States, and half of the
people who have glaucoma don’t know
that they have the disease and are not
aware that they are going blind.
The cause of glaucoma is unknown,
but there are several risk factors that
increase your risk of developing
glaucoma. These include high eye
pressure (called intraocular pressure,
or IOP), older age, being African-
American or Hispanic, and having a
family history of glaucoma. Anyone
with any of these risk factors should
get regular eye examinations to look
for glaucoma.
Glaucoma damages vision by destroying
the optic nerve, which connects
your eye to your brain, and carries
visual information to your brain for
processing. When the optic nerve is
damaged from glaucoma, you lose
your vision. Your peripheral vision—or
side vision—is lost first. If the glaucoma
remains untreated, the vision loss
creeps in toward the center, first
causing tunnel vision, and then, eventually,
blindness.
The cause of optic nerve damage in
glaucoma is not known, but since most
eyes with glaucoma have high IOP, it
is likely that high IOP plays a role in
damaging the nerve. IOP is a measure
of the fluid pressure inside the eye.
The eye is filled with clear fluid that
flows in through a spigot and flows out
through a drain. In glaucoma, the drain
of the eye gets plugged, and fluid
coming into the eye cannot get out,
raising the IOP.
A thorough examination for glaucoma
should include the measurement of
IOP. But since some eyes can have
glaucoma without high IOP, a careful
examination of the optic nerve looking
for glaucoma damage is also very
important. If the IOP is high or the
optic nerve looks damaged (or both), a
special test called a visual field test
should be performed. The visual field
test shows whether or not you’ve lost
any side vision to glaucoma.
If you are diagnosed with glaucoma,
treatment is available to save your
vision. The goal of glaucoma treatment
is to lower IOP and stop the optic
nerve damage. Several kinds of
treatment are available to lower IOP.
These include eye drops, laser therapy,
and surgery.
Eye drop medications lower IOP by
either reducing the amount of fluid
entering the eye or increasing the
amount of fluid exiting the eye. There
are several different kinds of glaucoma
medications, and each differs in terms
of both its ability to lower IOP and its
potential side effects. Laser therapy is
often used when medications fail to
successfully lower IOP, and is also
used for patients who cannot tolerate
medications due to side effects.
Recent advances in laser therapy have
produced lasers so safe and effective
that for some patients, laser therapy is
used instead of medications. If medications
and/or laser therapy fail to
bring the IOP down to a safe range,
surgery is available to lower IOP.
Our office is proud to feature state of the art technology, enabling our team of doctors to better diagnose glaucoma and develop treatment plans that will safely lower your IOP. If you are at risk for glaucoma, call today for an evaluation: (303)293-9311.
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