
If your mother or father are suffering from glaucoma, the risk that you will suffer from it is three to five times higher. If your brother or sister re suffering from glaucoma, the risk is five to seven times larger..
To understand why something broke down and how to fix it, you need to know more about the structure. In this case, the structure and function of the eye. Now let’s look at how and why it comes to glaucoma.
The brochure issued by the Australian Association for the fight against glaucoma writes: “For solid form of the eyebal, pressure is responsible. The soft eye tissueis ‘inflated’ like a car tire or balloon.”
Inside the eye there is a radial body that secretes from blood vessels fluid called aqueous humor into the eye “The fluid is circulating in the deep interior part of the eye, nourishes the individual components of the eye and goes back into the bloodstream, through the structure called trabecular meshwork.
Open angle glaucoma
If for any reason comes to a halt in the aqueous humor guide through the canal meshwork, that will increase the pressure in the eye. This will eventually lead to the damage of sensitive nerve fibers in the back of the eye. This disorder is called open angle glaucoma and it occupies about 90 percent of all cases of glaucoma.
Ocular or intraocular, pressure may vary during the day. It depends on a number of factors, such as the number of heart beats, how much liquid you drink and the position of your body. These natural changes in pressure does not damage the eye. Elevated eye pressure is not in itself a sign that you suffer from glaucoma, because the “normal” eye pressure varies from person to person. However, increased eye pressure may be one of the symptoms of glaucoma.
Acute glaucoma
One rare form of the disease is called acute glaucoma, or closed-angle glaucoma. Unlike open-angle glaucoma, this type of glaucoma is recognized by a sudden increase of intraocular pressure. This causes severe pain in the eye, blur vision and vomiting. If within a few hours after the appearance of symptoms a person is not provided with medical assistance, it often leads to vision loss.
Secondary glaucoma
There is also a form which is called secondary glaucoma. As can be seen from its name, this form of glaucoma is caused by pathological changes in the eye, such as cancer, cataract or eye injury.
Infantile glaucoma
The fourth form, called infantile glaucoma, is quite rare. This form of glaucoma is present from the birth or appears soon after birth, and is recognized by the fact that the child has increased eyeballs and is extremely sensitive to light.
Peripheral vision
It is possible that even now, while reading this article, your peripheral vision is slowly weakening, and that you are not even aware of that. It is estimated that worldwide 66 million people are suffering from some form of glaucoma. Among those suffering, there is over five million people who have completely gone blind. Therefore, glaucoma occupies third place in the rankings of the most common causes of permanent blindness.
“However, even in developed countries, where educational programs are trying to meet people with the threat, half of those suffering from glaucoma has not yet been diagnosed with this disease,” says the medical journal The Lancet.
Dr. Ivan Goldberg, one of the most prominent Australian ophthalmologist, said: “Glaucoma is called a deceptive thief of sight because with this disease we do not notice any symptoms.With the most common forms of glaucoma, the condition is slowly but steadily getting worse. The disease is quietly damaging the structure of nerves that connect eye and brain. Glaucoma has nothing to do with the tears in your eyes, whether your eyes are dry or not and whether you see clearly to read and write. Even if you do not have any problems with the eyes, it is possible to suffer from severe forms of glaucoma.
Detection of glaucoma
Unfortunately, there is no universal diagnostic index based on which one could determine whether you suffer from glaucoma. For start, the ophthalmologist can measure the eye pressure with an instrument called a tonometer. The instrument are easily equates corneal surface, or front of the eye. First, it is measured the strength of the forces required to equate cornea and these values are used to determine the pressure inside the eye. At the diagnostic examination the ophthalmologist is using instruments which can detect damage to the nervous tissue structure that connects the eye to brain.
Dr. Goldberg says, “While doing that we’re watching nerves or blood vessels in the back of the eye whether they have unusual shape, because it can be a sign of nerve damage.”
Glaucoma can be detected also with visual field testing. Dr. Goldberg explains: “A person looking at half-ball illuminated with white light in which it appears a little brighter white point (the so-called test pin). When people see a small white dot, they are required to signal it by pressing the button.”
If you do not see a white dot that appears at the edge of the visual field, it could be a sign that you are suffering from glaucoma. At the present time the new instruments are being developed in order to simplify this a bit slow and tedious process.
Resources: Awake and net.hr