Glaucoma 101

Glaucoma is one of the "silent blindness" disease of older folks all over the world. Most glaucoma has no symptoms at all, no warning that there is a problem. The only way to know that you have glaucoma is to have a complete eye examination performed by an eye doctor. Even then addtional testing might be necessary.

Glaucoma is damage to the optic nerve, the nerve that carries "light" from the eye to the brain. It usually comes with high eye pressure, but not always. There are lots of people who have glaucoma who have eye pressure that seems normal, and there are even more people who have high pressure who will never get glaucoma. The "normal" pressure in the eye is 11-21. Most people who get glaucoma are older, usually older than 60.

There are several ways to measure pressure in the eye. The two most common methods are Non-Contact Tonometry--the air puff-- and Contact Tonometry--the blue light. The "blue light" technique is much more accurate and is necessary to treat glaucoma. The "air puff" is a great screening test for glaucoma because it's easy to do, and easy to have done.

There's lots to talk about with Glaucoma so we'll try to teach you as much as we can here on the Skyvision Blog. All of our Doctors, Dr. White, Dr. Kaye, and Dr. Schlegel have lots of experience in treating people with glaucoma here in Cleveland. Stay tuned!