Glaucoma Specialist

What is glaucoma?

Glaucoma is an optic nerve disease. The optic nerve in your eye sends the images you see to your brain. It’s made up of tiny nerve fibers, like wires in an electric cable. When you have glaucoma, the pressure inside your eye increases.

This pressure can damage your optic nerve, causing blind spots. You might not notice the blind spots until your optic nerve suffers significant harm. Destruction of the optic nerve results in blindness.

Glaucoma is a significant cause of blindness in the United States, especially in older people. But early detection and treatment can prevent loss of sight from glaucoma.

What causes glaucoma?

The clear liquid in the front portion of your eye is aqueous humor. Your body constantly produces small amounts of aqueous, with an equal amount flowing out of your eye through a microscopic drainage system. This circulation of aqueous maintains a constant level of pressure inside the eyeball.

When you have glaucoma, the drainage system for aqueous fluid becomes blocked. That means excess fluid can’t drain away, which increases pressure in your eye. The increased pressure pushes against and damages the optic nerve.

You’re more likely to get glaucoma if there’s a history of it in your family. Other risk factors include being older, of African descent, and having had past eye injuries.

Are there different kinds of glaucoma?

Chronic open-angle glaucoma is the most common kind of glaucoma. As you get older, the drainage angle in your eye becomes less efficient. Pressure in the eye increases gradually, impairing your vision so slowly that you aren’t aware of it until there’s extensive optic nerve damage.

Less common is angle-closure glaucoma. Sometimes the eye’s drainage angle becomes completely blocked. The blockage is often caused by the iris (the colored part of your eye) dropping over the drainage angle. This results in a sudden buildup of eye pressure and symptoms like:

• Blurred vision
• Severe eye pain
• Headache
• Rainbow-colored halos around lights
• Nausea and vomiting

If you have one or more of these symptoms, call your eye doctor at North Shore Glaucoma Center & Eye Physicians immediately. Without urgent treatment, you could lose your sight.

Some people have a combination of chronic open-angle and acute angle-closure glaucoma.

How is glaucoma treated?

The damage glaucoma causes isn’t reversible. But several treatments that North Shore Glaucoma Center & Eye Physicians uses can prevent further harm. These include:

• Eye drops
• Selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT)
• MicroPulse® diode laser treatment
• Trabeculotomy 
• XEN® Gel Stent surgical implant
• OMNI® Glaucoma Treatment System
• Tube Shunt

Regular eye exams include a glaucoma screening. Attending an exam at the intervals recommended by your eye doctor is the best way to detect glaucoma in its early stages and prevent sight loss.

Call North Shore Glaucoma Center & Eye Physicians today or book an appointment online to arrange your eye exam or find out more about glaucoma.