Glaucoma treatment typically begins with eye drops, specialized medications designed to lower eye pressure and protect your vision. But are these drops alone enough to effectively manage this progressive condition?
Keep reading to learn whether eye drops are enough to manage your glaucoma.
What is Glaucoma?
Glaucoma encompasses a family of eye diseases characterized by progressive damage to the optic nerve. This vital nerve serves as the essential pathway for vision, transmitting visual information from your eye to your brain.
Once the optic nerve sustains damage, it cannot heal or regenerate, potentially leading to permanent vision loss if left untreated. The primary culprit behind glaucoma is often elevated intraocular pressure (IOP).
Your eyes continuously produce a clear fluid called aqueous humor as part of their normal function. In healthy eyes, this fluid circulates through the eye and exits through specialized drainage channels. This balanced flow maintains your eye pressure at appropriate levels.
However, glaucoma can develop when this drainage system becomes compromised. When the channels don’t function properly, fluid cannot exit at the same rate it’s produced.
This imbalance causes fluid to accumulate within the eye, increasing pressure on delicate eye structures, including the optic nerve. Eventually, glaucoma can worsen and cause irreversible blindness without treatment.
Can Glaucoma Go Undetected?
Glaucoma often doesn’t cause any symptoms early on. That’s why many people with glaucoma don’t know they have it.
By the time symptoms become noticeable, it’s usually in the advanced stages of the disease when glaucoma has already caused significant and irreparable damage.
This is why frequent eye examinations are essential. They can allow your eye doctor to detect subtle changes that signal glaucoma even before you experience any symptoms and the condition causes extensive damage.
A timely diagnosis of glaucoma allows treatment to begin promptly to slow or even stop the progression of the disease and save your sight.
Are Eye Drops Enough to Control Your Glaucoma?
Even though treatment can’t restore vision already lost to glaucoma, it can delay or halt further damage and vision loss. Glaucoma treatments aim to reduce intraocular pressure.
This can be achieved with the following treatment options:
Eye Drops
Eye drops are often the first line of glaucoma treatment. They can effectively lower IOP by decreasing the amount of fluid your eye makes or increasing the outflow of fluid from your eye.
It’s crucial to administer the medications exactly as instructed to adequately lower eye pressure. You may need more than one type of eye drop to successfully reduce intraocular pressure.
Your prescription may also change over time. Sometimes, eye drops may not be enough to treat glaucoma.
Some eye drops may produce side effects, and as a result, your doctor may prescribe a different medication. Also, many patients need a combination of treatments to safely manage IOP for years.
Other times, eye drops don’t decrease IOP to the target level. When that happens, your doctor may recommend additional treatment options such as oral medications, laser therapy, or surgery to bring IOP to safer levels.
Oral Medications
Oral medications such as carbonic anhydrase inhibitors or beta-blockers may be prescribed as well. These medicines can help reduce intraocular pressure by decreasing the production of aqueous humor in your eye.
Laser Therapy
There are various laser treatment options. One of the most common is laser trabeculoplasty.
It involves using a laser to improve your eye’s drainage system so fluid drains properly, decreasing IOP levels.
Surgery
There are various types of glaucoma surgeries, including trabeculectomy. Trabeculectomy entails creating an artificial opening in your eye for fluid drainage to help lower IOP.
Preserve Your Vision with the Best Glaucoma Treatment
Glaucoma can be controlled with eye drops. However, if you can’t tolerate the side effects or they don’t bring IOP down to the desired levels, our doctors at Simone Eye Center can recommend other effective treatments.
Do you have glaucoma, or can’t remember the last time you had an eye exam? Schedule your appointment at Simone Eye Center in Warren or Macomb Township, MI, today for a safe, effective, and personalized glaucoma treatment plan or to screen for glaucoma.
