Anyone on here with glaucoma?

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Annual Medicare vision exam came up with elevated pressures in my right eye and a start on age related macular degeneration on my left. So maybe I'll be looking down a soda straw in one eye and seeing nothing in the middle of the other. Optometrist told me to find an ophthalmologist and I'm trying to find one in my advantage plan that will see me within the next month.

When I look at the forum for glaucoma patients there seems to be a lot of gloom and doom. Most eye drops sting and as you lower your pressures medically or surgically cataracts develop, spinach will either help your glaucoma or give you glaucoma, buy your own tonometer so you can check your pressures several times a day, etc.

Obviously there's a parallel with BITOG except we're talking eyes instead of oil and that's less interesting and scarier. Just as many people who don't follow this board do just fine with any old oil changed every 8000 miles, I'm wondering if there are people on this board who have been diagnosed and really don't have much of a problem with it.

BTW- My exam showed 25 in the right eye, but I was taking way too much caffeine and salt so cutting those out can't do any harm. I do have high blood pressure but it's fairly well controlled with lisinopril and a beta blocker-usually under 120/80. Apparently eye pressures can vary as much and as quickly as blood pressure. If that's true, I imagine you can have the same white coat syndrome with eye pressures.
 
Of course, keep in close touch with an ophthalmologist over this, and follow what he recommends. Your point about maintaining a healthy lifestyle is always important.

My closest personal experience with glaucoma was with my mother. I can't say much about her symptoms other than that she didn't complain, but little got to her anyhow.
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Macular degeneration can be very difficult, but your health care professionals will help you more than any of us can.
 
I have glaucoma. I see an Opthalmologist once a year. I take eyedrops once a day and the pressure has returned to normal.
 
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Co worker has it. They smoke the funny stuff. Claim they like those side effects better than the medication's. And that it brings relief.

FWIW, YMMV, etc...
 
The ophalmologist will (or should) do a test that determines the thickness of your cornea(s). Corneal thickness skews the pressure reading. I've had LASIK 15 yrs ago which thins down the cornea some so they determined they need to add 3 clicks to whatever the tonometer reads since my corneas are thinner than whatever the standard is. If they're thicker than standard then they would subtract a number from the tonometer reading.

Don't trust too heavily the reading from an optometrist's exam especially if performed with the air puff instrument. The tono-pen (looks like a big ink pen) is more accurate than the air puff and the frame mounted tonometer is the most accurate.

22 is the top boundary of the "acceptable" range so 25 isn't that bad especially if that reading came from an air puff machine of tono-pen, or even a tonometer if the operator isn't experienced. It's possible that an ophthalmologist using the frame mounted (mounted on a swing arm thing with the chin rest and forehead bar) may get a reading lower than 25.

I'm on Lumigan 1 drop daily in the evening left eye only. Causes some dry eye issues but nothing major, so far so good. Mine is staying at 25 with the Lumigan.

Also depends on if it's open angle or closed angle type glaucoma. I forget which is harder to treat.

Don't fret too much because your pressure isn't that high and it's a very gradual process. They've noticed it early and treatment with easy eye drops should keep it in check for a very long time, years and years.

Mine is believed to be a side effect of the two invasive surgeries on that eye last year. They expect it to subside over time. I hope it does.
 
I'm at high risk and get tested every 6 months. First thing you should do is relax. The pressure test they did is only a screening. The readings can vary quite a bit. My pressure ranges between 18 and 24. The ophthalmologist will perform a visual field test and OCT. My mother had it and so did her mother. My mother took drops and it never seemed to bother her.

Lone ranger is spot on.
 
I have glaucoma. Lost most of my eye sight in one eye, but that is a longer story. I see the ophthalmologist 2x a year, keep up with eye drops and have had drainage holes lasered into my eyes. Upon moving, I like my new Dr. He is a little more proactive, keeps my pressures in low teens for the bad eye and mid teens for good eye. He also worked with me to find medication at a reasonable cost- his first prescription was $120 a month! Just stay on top of things and it is not a big deal.
 
Thanks for the responses. The reading of 25 with a non-contact tonometer was followed by the more accurate one performed by the OD. Both showed the same rating. I'm entering my mid seventies, so I'm not worried too much about some of these long term age-related maladies. Something else will probably get you first, anyway. They don't even test me for prostate cancer any more since about eighty percent of men dying at eighty have it (in an indolent form) anyway.

Interestingly enough I failed a field of vision test more than a decade ago and got referred to an ophthalmologist-- he said everyone fails field tests at optometrist offices cause it takes a couple of visits to learn how to take the test. He was right, took me two more tests and I passed. He said he had to get a disease code so he wrote down cataracts because (in his words) everyone over 55 has (very slight) cataracts. Told that story to my optometrist and he threw in that diagnosis in as well.

Thanks to those who said they took eye drops and it was no big deal. Reading the responses on the glaucoma board shows the same fixation on meds that BITOG'ers have with oil filter construction.
 
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