GLAUCOMA (Definition, types, signs & symptoms, risk factors, management)

The symptoms can start so slowly that you may not notice them. The only way to find out if you have glaucoma is to get a comprehensive dilated eye exam.

There’s no cure for glaucoma, but early treatment can often stop the damage and protect your vision.

Types of Glaucoma:
The most common type in the U.S.A is called open-angle glaucoma — that’s what most people mean when they talk about glaucoma. Other types are less common, like angle-closure glaucoma and congenital glaucoma.

Open Angle Glaucoma:
This may be caused by pressure building up in your eye. If the fluid in your eye can’t drain fast enough, it creates pressure that pushes on the optic nerve in the back of your eye.
Over time, the pressure damages the optic nerve, which affects your vision. This can eventually lead to blindness. In fact, open-angle glaucoma causes almost 2 in 10 cases of blindness in African Americans. People with high blood pressure or diabetes are at higher risk for this type.

Normal Pressure Glaucoma:
Normal-tension glaucoma is a type of open-angle glaucoma that happens in people with normal eye pressure.
You may be at higher risk for normal-tension glaucoma if you:
- Are of Japanese ancestry
- Have a family history of normal-tension glaucoma
- Have had certain heart problems, like an irregular heartbeat
- Have low blood pressure

Angle-closure glaucoma, also called narrow-angle or acute glaucoma, is a medical emergency. Go to the doctor or emergency room immediately if you suddenly have:

Intense eye pain
Upset stomach (nausea)
Red eye
Blurry vision
In this type of glaucoma, the outer edge of the iris (the colored part of your eye) blocks fluid from draining out of the front of the eye. The fluid builds up quickly, causing a sudden increase in eye pressure. If it’s not treated, angle-closure glaucoma can cause blindness in just a few days.

Symptoms of Glaucoma:
At first, glaucoma doesn’t usually have any symptoms. That’s why half of people with glaucoma don’t even know they have it.
Over time, you may slowly lose vision, usually starting with your side (peripheral) vision — especially the part of your vision that’s closest to your nose. Because it happens so slowly, many people can’t tell that their vision is changing at first.

But as the disease gets worse, you may start to notice that you can’t see things off to the side anymore. Without treatment, glaucoma can eventually cause blindness.

Diagnosis : Is by your eye doctor..
- Eye doctors can check for glaucoma as part of a comprehensive dilated eye exam. The exam is simple and painless — your doctor will give you some eye drops to dilate (widen) your pupil and then check your eyes for glaucoma and other eye problems.

Treatment: Doctors use different types of treatment for glaucoma, including medicines (usually eye drops), laser treatment, and surgery.