Glaucoma

Glaucoma is an eye disease that gradually steals vision. There are typically no early warning signs or painful symptoms of open-angle glaucoma. It develops slowly and sometimes without noticeable sight loss for many years.

Most people who have open-angle glaucoma feel fine and do not notice a change in their vision at first because the initial loss of vision is of side or peripheral vision, and the visual acuity or sharpness of vision is maintained until late in the disease.

By the time a patient is aware of vision loss, the disease is usually quite advanced. Without proper treatment, glaucoma can lead to blindness. The good news is that with regular eye exams, early detection, and treatment, you can preserve your vision.

Eye Exams

Because open-angle glaucoma has few warning signs or symptoms before damage has occurred, it is important to see a doctor for regular eye examinations. If glaucoma is detected during an eye exam, your eye doctor can prescribe a preventative treatment to help protect your vision.

Optic Nerve Damage

In open-angle glaucoma, the angle in your eye where the iris meets the cornea is as wide and open as it should be, but the eye’s drainage canals become clogged over time, causing an increase in internal eye pressure and subsequent damage to the optic nerve. It is the most common type of glaucoma, many of whom do not know they have the disease.

Increased Risk

You are at increased risk for glaucoma if your parents or siblings have the disease and possibly if you are diabetic or have cardiovascular disease. The risk of glaucoma also increases with age.

Are you at Risk for Glaucoma?

Everyone is at risk for glaucoma. However, certain groups are at higher risk than others.

People at high risk for glaucoma should see a doctor now for a complete eye exam, including eye dilation. Your eye doctor will tell you how often to have follow-up exams based on the results of this eye health screening.

The following are groups at higher risk for developing glaucoma

People Over 60

Glaucoma is much more common among older people. You are six times more likely to get glaucoma if you are over 60 years old.

Family Members with Glaucoma

The most common type of glaucoma, primary open-angle glaucoma, is hereditary. If members of your immediate family have glaucoma, you are at a much higher risk than the rest of the population.

Family history increases risk of glaucoma four to nine times.

Steroid Users

Some evidence links steroid use to glaucoma. A 1997 study reported in the Journal of American Medical Association demonstrated a 40% increase in the incidence of ocular hypertension and open-angle glaucoma in adults who require approximately 14 to 35 puffs of steroid inhaler to control asthma. This is a very high dose, only required in cases of severe asthma.

Eye Injury

Injury to the eye may cause secondary open-angle glaucoma. This type of glaucoma can occur immediately after the injury or years later.

Blunt injuries that “bruise” the eye (called blunt trauma) or injuries that penetrate the eye can damage the eye’s drainage system, leading to traumatic glaucoma.

Eye Injury

Other possible risk factors include:

• High myopia (nearsightedness)
• Hypertension
• Central corneal thickness less than .5 mm.