Glaucoma Treatment

Glaucoma Treatment:

Glaucoma is a disease that damages the small retinal nerve fibers in the back of your eye. The eye produces and recycles aqueous humor, a clear liquid that provides nutrients and immune support to the inside of the eyeball. If aqueous humor is produced in excess or drains away to slowly, the pressure inside the eye increases. The higher eye pressure slowly damages the retina nerve fibers. These fibers degenerate causing the retina to thin and changing the optic nerve appearance. This damage to the retina results in decreasing peripheral vision.

There are a few different forms of glaucoma. The more common types of glaucoma have no warning signs or obvious symptoms in the early stages. As the disease progresses, blind spots develop in your peripheral (side) vision. Most people with glaucoma do not notice any change in their vision until the damage is quite severe. Having regular eye exams can help detect glaucoma before vision loss is significant.

Glaucoma is more common in persons over age of 40, persons with a family history for glaucoma, persons of African or Hispanic heritage, and persons with higher eye pressure.

If glaucoma is suspected, the doctors at Owasso Eye Institute will perform a complete dilated eye exam and closely monitor your eye pressure multiple times a year. Additionally, we will closely examine your optic nerve for potential damage from eye pressure and often take pictures of the optic nerve to monitor for potential changes over time. Visual field tests that assess your peripheral vision and ocular coherence tomography scans to measure your retinal thickness are also performed.

Glaucoma damage is permanent; it cannot be reversed. But medicine and surgery help to slow or stop visual loss. The most common way to treat glaucoma is with medicated eyedrops designed to lower your eye pressure. Additionally, there are laser procedures that can help aqueous drain more effectively from the eye, thus lowering eye pressure. Lastly, there are a few more invasive surgeries that can also lower eye pressure in more aggressive, atypical forms of glaucoma.