Glaucoma is an eye condition in which the pressure of the fluid in the eye is abnormally high. It can be caused by a congenital defect in the eye, injury or a variety of medical conditions. The thing that makes glaucoma a serious medical condition is that high eye fluid pressure causes permanent damage to the optic nerve resulting in loss of vision, and if not treated can lead to blindness. Glaucoma is insidious because there are usually no symptoms until severe damage to vision has already occurred, so it’s important to ask your eye doctor to do an eye pressure check each time you have your eyes examined. The good news is that glaucoma is treatable and you can manage glaucoma and preserve all or most of your remaining sight for decades in most cases.
Instructions
1. Schedule regular eye examinations with your doctor. Glaucoma can be controlled with medications, surgery or a combination of the two. Nevertheless changes in the eyes occur over time and can affect the pressure in your eyes. Regular eye exams will catch any changes before they are likely to do significant further damage to your vision.
2. Maintain a strict regimen when it comes to taking any prescription medications (usually these are in the form of eye drops). Medications for glaucoma must be taken at least once and usually two to four times a day, so you will be responsible for self-medication. It is absolutely essential that you put this as a first priority and have a regular daily schedule for taking these medications. Fortunately, with modern drugs in the form of eye drops, this takes only a minute and can be done anywhere and rarely interferes with your other activities.
3. Watch your diet, especially your intake of fluids. Drinking large quantities of caffeinated drinks will tend to raise eye pressure. You should also eat a diet that is appropriate for controlling high blood pressure. The same foods that will raise blood pressure will also tend to increase eye pressure.
4. Exercise appropriately. Do not follow a weightlifting routine unless you have the approval of your eye doctor. Normally only the use of light weights is recommended. The intense effort required for lifting heavy weights can cause a “pressure spike” that can damage your optic nerve. However, regular aerobic exercise (walking, running, etc.) is a way to help keep eye pressure down naturally. Just as with blood pressure, maintaining good cardio-vascular fitness helps keep the numbers down.
5. Use appropriate assistive devices if you’ve suffered significant damage to the optic nerve. For many people, this is an important strategy to manage glaucoma. Assistive technology is any device or accommodation that will enable you to carry out normal activities despite a loss of vision. These can be as simple as a pair of reading glasses or using a large font for computer print-outs. Other assistive technology includes special software to magnify computer screen displays, read text on screen out loud and special closed-circuit television systems (CCTVs) that will magnify regular print books. Modern technology is now so sophisticated that some athletes with vision loss use audio output telescopic sights to compete in archery and rifle target shooting. Finally, there are national libraries of audio books (talking books) available free of charge. Even severe vision loss does not need to stop you from leading a full life.
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