How Glaucoma Can Develop Without You Knowing It
May 09, 2024
If you’ve ever had a garden hose burst, you’ve seen the way pressure buildup can suddenly cause a big issue. A similar problem can develop in your eye.
Fluids in your eye play a big role in keeping it healthy, but too much can apply pressure to your optic nerve, which connects with your brain and enables you to see.
When that happens, eye health experts call it glaucoma. The pressure-related vision loss is a leading cause of blindness in the United States.
If you want to protect your ability to see through the years, you need to defend against glaucoma. Doing that means getting an eye exam because glaucoma can develop without you knowing it. As experts in eye diseases, our doctors at Edwin Y. Endo, OD & Associates offer glaucoma screenings at our office in Aiea, Hawaii.
Let’s dig deeper into why this condition often goes unnoticed.
Glaucoma comes in several different forms. One type — closed-angle glaucoma — develops suddenly and causes symptoms like your vision looking clouded with steam, sudden eye pain, and halos around lights.
The most common type of glaucoma, though, develops over time as pressure slowly builds in the eye. Open-angle glaucoma usually doesn’t cause any symptoms for a while, even as the increasing pressure affects your optic nerve.
Over time, you might start to notice issues with your peripheral vision. Even then, because the changes occur slowly, many people don’t notice that they’re developing a serious eye condition.
Because glaucoma usually doesn’t cause symptoms, the only way to know if your eye has excess pressure is to get an eye exam.
At our office, Dr. Endo and our team offer eye pressure measurement. This allows us to test the pressure in your eye to see if it’s higher than normal. This test is quick, and we place numbing drops in your eyes so it should be completely comfortable.
If we do discover that your eye pressure reads high, we tailor a plan for you. We have a variety of ways we can treat glaucoma by bringing pressure down to protect your optic nerve — and your ability to see. Some people get results with medicated eye drops. Others need more involved care like laser treatment or surgery.
Ultimately, glaucoma is a highly treatable condition — provided you catch it before it can permanently damage your vision. To get your eye pressure measurements taken during an eye exam, call our office or book your visit online today.