Get the Facts About Glaucoma

Too much pressure can be bad for your eyes, and it can lead to serious issues that affect your vision. Since vision loss can be permanent, you should practice excellent eye care and talk to your eye doctor in Chicago about how you can protect yourself. You might not notice your symptoms right away, and the disease can continue to progress if you don’t do anything about it. Open-angle glaucoma actually damages your optic nerve, which connects your eyes and brain. Feel free to read ahead if you would like to get the facts about glaucoma. glaucoma - eye

Symptoms Occur Slowly

Finding out that a given condition doesn’t always have symptoms might seem like a blessing, but sometimes it can do more harm than good. If you don’t notice anything different when you go about your daily life, you probably won’t be in a rush to meet with your eye doctor. When you first develop open-angle glaucoma, there won’t be any symptoms to notice. Everything will feel normal for a period of time, and then your peripheral vision will start to decline. If you don’t visit your eye doctor to create a treatment plan, you may lose your central vision over time as well.

Glaucoma Is Treatable, But Not Curable

Once you have lost some of your vision due to glaucoma, you can’t have it restored. This is why it’s extremely important that you visit your eye doctor for regular checkups. Since you won’t notice any symptoms of the disorder until your vision starts to go, preventative maintenance becomes even more essential. Your eye doctor can prescribe you medication to slow down the progression of the disease by lowering the pressure in your eyes. You can also talk to your eye doctor about surgery or laser trabeculoplasty.

Open-Angle Glaucoma Damages the Optic Nerve

One of the main factors involved in glaucoma is pressure. When fluid won’t properly drain from the eye, you may end up with glaucoma. This retention of fluid ultimately causes the buildup of pressure that damages your optical nerve, which can in turn result in loss of vision.