Glaucoma
Glaucoma is an eye condition, that can be quite common. It affects the optic nerve at the back of the eye and it is the optic nerve that connects the eye to the brain. We use this connection of the optic nerve between both working parts to get information to the brain about what we are seeing and experiencing in our environment. This is a vital process and it’s very important that the connection is working properly to make sure the messages are getting relayed to the brain.
The most common cause of glaucoma, is from increased pressure in the eye, although this does not apply to all types of Glaucoma but can be a lead contributing factor to the initial cause and diagnosis. Just like your blood pressure that can rise, your eye also has fluid that is produced and drained, and if there is blockage to the drainage, if the eye doesn’t drain its fluid correctly, the pressure goes up it’s like putting your foot on the hose, it builds the pressure up on one side of the hose.
A Bit Deeper
The weak spot in the eye tends to be the optic nerve, it’s more susceptible to damage and if you increase the pressure in the eyes, the optic nerve is most likely the spot that is going to get damaged. With glaucoma, there are lots of things that may put you at risk and one of the most common risk factors is family history as often immediate family members or extended family have glaucoma, and that can increase your risk of being diagnosed yourself. It’s always good to get your eyes checked for glaucoma, particularly because it affects your peripheral vision, which is like your outside vision and very rarely does it affect your central vision. Often it can be hard for you to notice changes in your peripheral vision because you’re always concentrating on your central vision and it also doesn’t tend to deteriorate rapidly. It’s a quite sneaky condition that takes a long time for damage to set in, of course unless the pressure is astronomically high, and is generally slowly progressive. That means that one, it’s harder to notice yourself and two, with the peripheral nature of it, it’s not something that you tend to pick up yourself so it’s something we have to be pretty vigilant in looking for.
What We Can Do
There are ways we look for glaucoma; with our technology in house we look at the optic nerve with imaging and with using a microscope that allows us to get a more in depth look at the optic nerve. We check the pressure and there are other tests we can do to measure your peripheral vision over long periods of time such as a visual field test. We measure the thickness of the nerve tissue with what is called an OCT and it will provide us with a thorough scan of your eye to see whether or not you’re losing nerve tissue or if the optic nerve is damaged. There are lots of different tests that we do to make sure that we can track and monitor glaucoma development and progression.
Once we do detect glaucoma there are different treatment methods that people can undergo for the condition. These include: therapeutic eyedrops that can help reduce the eye pressure, there are laser procedures, and there are some surgical procedures, all of which are good at slowing progression of glaucoma. If you’re interested in hearing more about glaucoma or if you want to get your eyes checked or if perhaps you’ve got family history of glaucoma, come in to the Custom Eyecare and we’ll have a check.
Wes Butler-Optometrist
Video Link: https://player.vimeo.com/video/463725137
