High Eye Pressure and Glaucoma Treatment for Healthy Vision

One of the most important senses you have is your eyesight. Nearly 80% of what we perceive from our environment comes through your sight. Having any form of eye problem can reduce your productivity or even reduce the quality of your life.

Since May is a healthy vision month, it is essential to understand why a healthy vision is important. By protecting your eyes, you can reduce the chances of having vision loss or developing diseases as high eye pressure and glaucoma.

Visiting our optometrist near you can help you catch conditions before they happen and also guide you on how to prevent some of the eye problems.

What Is High Eye Pressure?

As the name suggests, this is a condition in the eyes characterized by pressure in the eyes. Your eyes usually produce the right amount of aqueous humor (the fluid that nourishes the lens and aids in pressure maintenance) but cannot adequately drain it out.

In itself, it is not considered a disease, but it is a situation that has to be closely monitored.

When your eyes are okay, the fluid is drained out properly, but in the instances where the meshwork responsible for draining the fluid gets clogged, pressure increases. This pressure can cause vision problems ranging from poor night vision to retinal detachment.

Do You Have High Eye Pressure?

You cannot know if you have high pressure or not unless you visit our optometrist. This is because there are no outward signs like red eyes or eye pain. Only an eye exam can reveal if your eye pressure is within the normal range.

When you get to our offices, our optometrist will use a pen-like device and press on your eyes after numbing them with eye drops. The device measures your eye pressure.

Causes

There could be a number of reasons that might cause you to have high eye pressure:

• Genetics
• Age
• High Myopia (shortsightedness)
• Certain diseases like diabetes
• Some medications used to treat other conditions

Treatment

If the results of the exam indicate that you have ocular hypertension, our optometrist will prescribe eye drops to reduce the eye pressure.

Though at times, it is best to monitor the situation before issuing high eye pressure treatment to see whether there are chances that it will subside.

Risks: Glaucoma

At times, high eye pressure can develop into a much more severe problem which is glaucoma. Some types of glaucoma can have high eye pressure as the first symptom. These are:

• Angle-closure glaucoma known to cause immediate vision loss and is classified as a medical emergency.
• Primary open-angle glaucoma is the most common type, characterized by vision loss that occurs over many years.

Other types of glaucoma are not caused by high eye pressure. These are:

• Low-tension glaucoma is where there is optic nerve damage, and vision loss happens irrespective of normal eye pressure.
• Congenital glaucoma which means a child is born with a defect that hinders proper fluid drainage.
• Secondary glaucoma is caused by other complications caused by certain medical conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes.

Treatment

Glaucoma treatment comes in different types depending on the type of glaucoma though it is vital to note that it is best to treat it early before it becomes severe, and vision loss happens as a result.

Here are some of the glaucoma treatments available:

• Medicated eye drops – there is a myriad of them that our doctor can prescribe to you depending on the type of glaucoma.
• Oral medications that can be used if eye drops do not give the desired result.
• Laser surgery
• Operating room surgery

Preventive Maintenance

Apart from a healthy diet and protective measures that will protect the eyes from foreign material, taking an eye exam is quite vital. The eyes, more or less, are the windows to your body. Our experienced optometrist near you can check your blood vessels in their natural state without using a surgical procedure. An eye exam can reveal:

• Diabetes
• Macular degeneration
• High cholesterol
• Cataracts
• High blood pressure
• Glaucoma

Some of these conditions can be remedied or even prevented with proper management and frequent visits to our optometrist in Glendale Eye Medical Group. It is vital to have a healthy vision because it also has an impact on brain health.