Glaucoma Eye Disease

Before you would want to know what the symptoms of glaucoma are, you would want to know what is glaucoma eye disease.

Glaucoma is a group of diseases with a characteristic pattern leading to progressive loss of vision due to damage to the optic nerve. The optic nerve is a bundle of more than a million nerve fibers which carries visual impulses from our eyes to the brain. It is these impulses that make us "see" what we see.

While glaucoma is more common in people above 60 years of age, it can strike at any age. In fact, babies may even be born with it or develop the condition shortly after birth. This form of glaucoma present in babies and children attributes to congenital glaucoma.

There are mainly two types of glaucoma; open-angle glaucoma and closed-angle or narrow-angle glaucoma. Pigmentary glaucoma, normal-tension glaucoma and congenital glaucoma belongs to the open-angle type. What is common to all of them is gradual loss of vision which may lead to blindness.

So, if you have glaucoma, your vision may gradually deteriorate; but like many of the glaucoma sufferers, you may not notice it. The reason why glaucoma is called the "sneak thief of sight" is because in most forms of this disease, in the early stages, there may not be any obvious symptoms to warn you. By the time you notice the visual loss, it may be a while that you may be having the disease. This is because vision loss in glaucoma starts from the periphery of your field of vision. You may see the things in front of you very clearly, but you will not be able to see what's on your sides.

Very rarely, you may experience pain on and around your eyes. The pain may be severe in nature and associated with nausea, vomiting, headache, blurred vision and seeing halos around lights. Pain is usually due to a high intra ocular pressure (IOP). A high IOP is not always a feature of glaucoma.

The one thing you can do to check whether you may have the disease is, to get your eyes regularly checked by an eye care practitioner. More often than not, diagnosis of this disease depends less on the symptoms you may have but on a thorough examination of the eyes. Depending on the findings, the eye examination may have to be followed by tests using sophisticated instruments and equipment. Treatment may be in the form of prescription medication usually in the form of eye drops, laser surgery and conventional surgery or a combination of them.

Early diagnosis of the disease and appropriate treatment may prevent most people from going blind. However, few people do experience visual loss even with treatment. Because glaucoma is a chronic disease, once diagnosed, it should be monitored for life.

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