There is a type of eye disease that is somewhat arrogant and difficult to prevent
I like to hide when I have nothing to do
Once you stir up trouble, you can forever be plunged into darkness
I believe everyone has heard of this eye disease
It is glaucoma, also known as the ‘visual thief’
Glaucoma is a common irreversible blindness eye disease
It can be roughly divided into two types: acute and chronic
Nausea and headache may occur during acute glaucoma attacks
Symptoms such as rapid decline in vision
Chronic glaucoma, on the other hand, is affected by its early symptoms
Not obvious, often easily overlooked
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How can chronic glaucoma ‘do bad things secretly’?
Chronic glaucoma can be divided into two types: primary open-angle glaucoma and chronic angle closure glaucoma. The former generally has no obvious symptoms in the early stage, but when the disease develops to a certain extent, there may be mild eye swelling, visual fatigue (such as nasal and orbital pain), and headache.
Chronic angle closure glaucoma sometimes has small episodes, characterized by mild eye swelling, headache, blurred vision, and occasional iridescence, which often occurs at night and quickly resolves on its own.
However, these symptoms that are not obvious and do not cause any particular discomfort often make patients think that it is caused by eye fatigue, which is difficult to take seriously at first. Some patients only realize when their central vision is damaged, but by then the lost vision is irreparable.
Suffering from chronic glaucoma, the drainage system located in the trabecular meshwork gradually becomes blocked, and the intraocular pressure slowly rises. The eyes have enough time to adapt to the gradually rising intraocular pressure, so there are no obvious symptoms in the early stage.
During this process, the patient’s optic nerve is gradually damaged, and the field of view gradually narrows until peripheral vision is completely lost, leaving only “tunnel vision” (peripheral vision without central vision, only referring to a narrow circular tunnel like area in the field of view).
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How to treat being targeted by it?
Glaucoma is a common irreversible eye disease that causes blindness. The main purpose of its treatment is to protect and maintain the remaining optic nerve tissue and function of the patient, keep the intraocular pressure within the appropriate target range, promote the circulation of microvessels on the surface of the optic nerve, reduce further damage to the optic nerve, and stabilize visual function.
The treatment of chronic glaucoma mainly relies on medication, which is mainly used to reduce aqueous humor production or increase aqueous humor excretion. If the condition cannot be controlled after medication, surgery or laser treatment should be considered to open a new drainage channel in the eye for the patient, allowing aqueous humor to be directly expelled from the eye and reducing intraocular pressure.
To prevent “vision thieves”, we must guard the “door to intraocular pressure” well
Elevated intraocular pressure is one of the main risk factors for developing glaucoma. In daily life, it is important to avoid behaviors that can easily trigger elevated intraocular pressure, such as overeating, smoking and drinking, overwork, long-term sleep deprivation, prolonged eye use in low light environments, constipation, etc.
In addition, it is also important to persist in physical exercise, maintain a happy mood, avoid excessive emotional fluctuations, eat more nutritious foods, and keep eye pressure stable.
For high-risk groups of glaucoma, such as high myopia, high intraocular pressure, family history of glaucoma, patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, patients with diabetes, and the elderly, self inspection can be carried out frequently. When the eyeball is hard and the light has a rainbow circle, attention should be paid to it, and the intraocular pressure should be checked regularly to pay attention to their own vision.
Although glaucoma is very cunning, with the advancement of medical technology, there are now many sophisticated examination instruments that can detect various types of glaucoma in the early stages. Among them, optical coherence tomography (OCT) can provide strong evidence for the diagnosis and differentiation of optic nerve injury. It is a non-contact and non-invasive ophthalmic diagnostic technique that helps detect early glaucoma.