Glaucoma

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Glaucoma

There are about four million people with glaucoma in the U.S. two million know that they have it, the other two million don't know yet. Glaucoma is a name of a disease that's not very well understood at all. In fact, its very confusing as there are many different types of diseases under the name of glaucoma.

For example, not all glaucoma have high eye pressures, and there are some types of glaucoma where the “angle” or the drain of the eye is open and some that are closed. Primary open angle glaucoma is considered a genetic disease. Although you don't have to have parents who have glaucoma to inherit the disease, you are certainly at a higher risk of having the disease if a sibling or a parent has it.

However, it is clearly one of the most dangerous diseases. One of the reasons it is dangerous is because there are no symptoms early on. A person may enjoy many decades of perfect vision and one day notice a problem. The patient finally goes to an ophthalmologist and finds out that he or she has glaucoma and has already lost a majority of his or her vision. Once vision is lost due to glaucoma, we cannot bring it back. That is why its so important to have your eyes checked, even if you feel like you have perfect eyes. If the disease is caught early, we can control and slow down the disease significantly by lowering the eye pressure. The key is to catch the disease early.

We can lower the eye pressure with medication eye drops, a laser procedure called SLT, or glaucoma surgery. There is no cure yet, however. Like the medicine and the laser treatment, the surgery is to lower the eye pressure, not to eliminate glaucoma. In the U.S., we leave the surgery for more advanced cases. We usually start treatment for glaucoma with either medication or laser treatments, both of which are very easily tolerated.

Many advances have been made in recent years to control the disease. There are several procedures now that can be done while doing cataract surgery to better control the eye pressure. Collectively known as “minimally invasive glaucoma surgery” (MIGS), it has revolutionized treatment of glaucoma.

If you are the age of 40 or above and never had an eye exam, please call your nearest ophthalmologist and get a check up.