Healthy Tips

Glaucoma is an eye disease in which there is an optic neuropathy, where the optic nerve suffers an injury or lose functionality, resulting in visual field deficit.

In addition, the disease is characterized by progressive loss of retinal nerve fibers and there are changes in the appearance of the optic nerve. One of the main factors that may influence the onset of glaucoma is high intraocular pressure.

Most affected people have no symptoms in the early stages of the disease. Generally, noticeable visual field defects and vision loss, when symptoms may mean that the disease is in an advanced stage of its evolution.

It is normal to have eye pain in chronic glaucoma, but is common in acute glaucoma.

The causes of the onset of glaucoma include age, appears more frequently in older pesonas, genetic causes, in diseases such as diabetes or hypertension, in people who have used steroids, poor diet, which causes the appearance of free radicals

The most characteristic symptoms that lead to glaucoma include loss of peripheral or side vision, eye pain, vision floaters or flashing, headache, blurred vision, rainbow-like halos, nausea and vomiting, and blindness. These symptoms usually occur in angle-closure glaucoma, where there is a decrease in the iridocorneal angle.

In open-angle glaucoma, the iridocorneal angle is normal. Evolution is slow, there are no apparent symptoms but progressively deteriorating vision, it uses drugs that lower intraocular pressure, eye drops are applied directly in the eye, such as:

Semiotic-pilocarpine-epinephrine or drugs derived from them, whose function is to improve the passage of fluid between the chambers of the eye.

-Beta blockers and carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, which reduce the amount of fluid produced.

Drug-oral carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, so that the decrease of the liquid is more constant.

-In angle-closure glaucoma, the picture is sharp and immediate treatment is necessary to reduce eye strain. Hyperosmotic solutions are used by injection or by mouth to control the tension a few hours but then must move on to other semiotic maintenance treatments, beta blockers and carbonic anhydrase inhibitors.

Stubborn cases should be treated with laser iridotomy and iris part is extracted and used to treat cases of angle-closure glaucoma.