How to Manage Your Glaucoma Diagnosis

Getting diagnosed as a glaucoma patient is not a one-day thing, you shouldn't expect to walk into the consulting room of the optometrist and just be told that you have glaucoma. And so if you are not going in for a checkup do have it in mind that if you happen to have any such signs of glaucoma then you would be required to do more testing for confirmation.

One of the things you may be asked to do is to take a Visual Field Test to verify the perimetry of your vision as to whether there has already been nerve damage ongoing or functionality is still in good shape. You may also be asked to take the ocular coherence tomography test which would check the integrity and the structure of the retina and its layers to confirm thinning.

• Medication

Once you have been diagnosed the first thing we need to look at from that moment forward is your medication. You may be given different drugs or classes of glaucoma treatments whose dosage and dose may change based on the accompanying intraocular pressure that would be recorded and the severity of your condition.

The most common drug is timolol, is less expensive and tends to be one of the first lines of treatment. You would have to put a drop every morning and every evening. Some others may demand you used it only evenings whereas others may require that you use them in combination with others.

Whichever it may be the most important thing i want to draw your attention to in terms of managing your glaucoma and protecting the vision left is to not miss your drops. It is very important that you are religious with your drops and also, that you do not allow them to finish before you you go for a refill.

When you leave spaces in between your treatment there is an acute rise in pressure that tends to cause more damage than it would have initially exacerbating the situation and causing more vision loss. And so not only should you be religious with your drops but please do not let them finish completing before going for review or refill.

• Other contributing Conditions

Let's talk about hypertension since it is the system's rise in pressure and the eye is such a delicate organ that anything that happens in the system has a direct or indirect effect on it. Whiles the eye has its own pressure a rise in the systemic pressure would have an effect on it and as such hypertension become an important concern as a glaucoma patient.

If you happen to be a glaucoma patient with hypertension as a secondary condition then it becomes very pertinent that you manage your hypertension well to prevent the rise in pressure from affecting your IOP which may be the focus for your optometrist who may already have plans in place to manage your pressure.

Other system conditions like diabetes also tend to affect your glaucoma diagnosis in different ways which would directly or indirectly result in a rise in IOP. Talk to your optometrist about whichever systemic conditions you may have to know the best way forward in terms of co-management. But the most important thing to remember is that you would need to be meticulous with all other forms of medication to help your glaucoma diagnosis.

• Habits

The last thing i want us to look at today would be your habits. There are things that you may have been doing previously to your diagnosis that you would need to change. Habits like alcohol which studies have shown to have a long-term effect on IOP by increasing would have to be stopped for the benefit of saving your sight.

Other habits such as smoking would also have to be skipped or avoided to help with your condition management. According to research, there is a positive correlation between rise in intraocular pressure and smoking. It has also been learned that high amounts of caffeine in the system tend to cause IOP to rise, thus you would need to cut down on the caffeine.

Positive habits such as eating green leafy vegetables and fruits would have to be adopted or continue. This may be coupled with healthy exercising to keep your overall system healthy. Exercises also tend to have a good long term effect on controlling once intraocular pressure.

Managing your glaucoma diagnosis is an everyday thing and requires one to put in effort on a daily basis to do more and be better. And so i wish to admonish you that glaucoma can very well be managed and only requires that we put in the effort.

Do well to always bring your concerns out that they may be addressed. Do leave a comment below or reach out to me on discord if you would like for us to have a chat.

Thanks for reading, please do reach out if you need further information or clarification. Stay safe and have a wonderful time.