Glaucoma

What is Glaucoma?

One of the most common eye diseases is glaucoma, known as the “silent thief” because it can develop over time without showing symptoms. Glaucoma damages the optic nerve in the back of your eye. This usually happens when the fluid inside the eye builds up at the front, causing higher-than-normal pressure; however, in some cases glaucoma can happen even in eyes with normal fluid pressure.

This fluid build-up can have many causes, creating many types of glaucoma. Because glaucoma progresses slowly, with no noticeable symptoms until significant damage has occurred, regular eye exams are key to detecting and slowing progression.

Narrow angle

One of the risk factors for glaucoma is a condition called “narrow angle,” in which the drainage space/angle for the fluid inside the eyes is not wide enough, causing that fluid to build up and the intra-ocular pressure (IOP) to increase, whether slowly or suddenly. Increased IOP over time can damage your optic nerve, and when this damage happens we refer to it as glaucoma.

During your routine eye exam, your optometrist will assess whether your eyes have narrow angles, to see if you’re at greater risk of developing glaucoma.

Diagnosing Glaucoma

While the symptoms may be invisible to you, they can be detected by:

checking the eye pressure
examining the optic nerve with a dilated eye exam
using OCT to assess the health of the optic nerve to diagnose any suspicion of glaucoma
visual field testing. In some cases, optic nerve damage can start to affect your peripheral vision. Our visual field testing machine is one important tool we use to diagnose and monitor glaucoma.