Glaucoma
What is Glaucoma ?
No.2 cause of blindness
Glaucoma is a diesease that the optic nerve is damaged due to high ocular pressure, and eventually visual field becomes narrower and narrower. Once the optic nerve is damaged, it can never be restored. So, early diagnosis and early treatment is necessary.
When untreated, it causes loss of vision.
What is the normal range of eye pressure ?
It used to be said that normal eye pressure is under 21mmHg. But glaucoma develops even if the eye pressure is below 21mmHg. So, when you are diagnosed as glaucoma, to lower the eye pressure by 20% is neccessary.
Signs and Symptoms
Optic nerve becomes atrophic
The photo on the left shows the normal optic nerve. When glaucoma develops it becomes whitish and atrophic as the photo on the right.
正常な視神経（中央の白い部分）
緑内障で傷んだ視神経
Visual field becomes narrower
As the optic nerve becomes damaged, visual field becomes narrow, but initially there is no symptoms. As the glaucoma progress, the visual field becomes narrower and narrower. The right picture shows the restricted visual field of a glaucoma patient
正常な方の視野
緑内障で狭くなった方の視野
Treatment is aimed to lower the eye pressure.
Eye drops
The initial treatment of glaucoma is eye drops. There are many kinds of eyedrops and one to three kinds are choosed by the eye pressyre and severity of glaucoma.
いろいろな眼薬が開発されています
Surgery
When the eye pressure is still high or loss of visual field develops even if eye drops are used, surgery should be considered. Below is the eye after glaucoma surgery. The aquaous water in the eye is lead out and forms a bleb.
緑内障手術後