Glaucoma & Treatment
Glaucoma is a disease that damages the eye’s optic nerve. The optic nerve is connected to the retina — a light-sensitive tissue lining the back of the eye. The optic nerve comprises many nerve fibers, like an electric cable comprises many wires. The optic nerve sends signals from your retina to your brain, interpreted as the images you see. At Munster Eye Care Associates, P.C. in Munster, IN, we have doctors to help diagnose and treat glaucoma in your eyes.
If the drainage angle is blocked, excess fluid cannot flow out of the eye, causing the fluid pressure to increase. In the healthy eye, a clear fluid called aqueous (pronounced AY-kwee-us) humor circulates inside the front portion of your eye. To maintain a constant healthy eye pressure, your eye continually produces a small amount of aqueous humor while an equal amount of this fluid flows out of your eye.
The fluid flows through a tiny drain called the trabecular meshwork, a complex network of cells and tissue in an area called the drainage angle. If you have glaucoma, the aqueous humor does not flow through the trabecular meshwork properly. Fluid pressure in the eye builds up and, over time, causes damage to the nerve fibers.
Signs & Symptoms of Glaucoma
Glaucoma is often called the "silent thief of sight" because most types typically cause no pain and produce no symptoms. For this reason, glaucoma often progresses undetected until the optic nerve has already been irreversibly damaged, with varying degrees of permanent vision loss.
But there are other forms of the disease (specifically, acute angle-closure glaucoma), where symptoms of blurry vision, halos around lights, intense eye pain, nausea, and vomiting occur suddenly. If you have these symptoms, immediately see an eye care practitioner or visit the emergency room so steps can be taken to prevent permanent vision loss.
How is Glaucoma Treated?
Treatment of glaucoma is often achieved with the use of intraocular pressure (IOP) lowering eye drops. When these eyedrops do not lower the pressure enough, or the eyedrops are not well tolerated, sometimes surgical options are discussed to lower the intraocular pressure.
In recent years, the development of “Minimally Invasive Glaucoma Surgeries” (MIGS) has allowed for increasingly safe and successful glaucoma surgeries to reduce intraocular pressure.
At Munster Eye Care, we are dedicated to providing exceptional eye care services to patients in Munster, Indiana, Dyer, Indiana, Highland, Indiana, Hammond, Indiana, Griffith, Indiana, and the surrounding cities of Northwest Indiana. With our team of experienced eye doctors and state-of-the-art facility, we strive to ensure that every patient receives personalized and comprehensive care.