What is glaucoma?
Glaucoma is an eye disease involving optic nerve damage. Your optic nerve — the nerve that transmits visual signals to the brain — typically sustains damage when your inner eye drainage system gets increasingly clogged and the fluid level rises within the eye.
Glaucoma can cause vision loss and is one of the leading causes of blindness in the United States. However, with regular eye checkups and early diagnosis, you can prevent vision loss.
What are the types of glaucoma?
There are two types of glaucoma:
Open-angle glaucoma
More than 90% of glaucoma cases are primary open-angle glaucoma, in which your eye pressure increases slowly over time. It takes a long time to progress, which is why patients who don’t get regular eye exams are often surprised when they start losing peripheral and, later, central vision.
Open-angle glaucoma is painless. Because it rarely causes symptoms, it’s important to have your regular comprehensive eye exams at Ypsilanti Vision so your eye doctor can check for changes inside your eyes.
Angle-closure glaucoma
Acute angle-closure glaucoma is a rare and serious form of the disease involving a sudden eye pressure increase. Slow drainage causes open-angle glaucoma, but with acute angle-closure glaucoma, you have no drainage because the angle between your iris and cornea closes.
This causes sudden symptoms such as:
- Eye pain
- Nausea and vomiting
- Red eye
- Blurry vision
- Rings around lights
Acute angle-closure glaucoma is urgent. If you don’t get medical care immediately, you could lose your eyesight.
How does an optometrist identify glaucoma?
Ypsilanti Vision uses a couple of different tests to identify the early signs of glaucoma. A visual field test is one important factor in early diagnosis.
In this test, your optometrist checks your whole visual field, including peripheral and straight-ahead vision. Glaucoma usually affects the peripheral vision first, so a change in your side vision can be an important indicator of glaucoma.
The team also uses the onsite optical coherence tomography (OCT) machine for glaucoma diagnosis. OCT imaging works like a CT scan for your eyes. It creates a 3D map of your eyes that your optometrist can then study to identify changes indicative of glaucoma or other eye diseases.
How do you treat glaucoma?
Your optometrist may prescribe eye drops that prevent disease progression. Eye drops can improve your eye drainage or reduce fluid production to help decrease your intraocular pressure (IOP).
If eye drops don’t help lower your IOP, you may need other treatments, such as laser therapy or surgery.
Book your glaucoma assessment by calling Ypsilanti Vision or using the online scheduler.
