Saturday, April 10, 2010

Eye Glaucoma

Red eyes and swollen eyelids upon awakening in the morning are common eye problems that many people suffer from with vague diagnoses usually of dry eyes or eye allergies. As you sleep at night the normal tear film is not being pumped out through the tear ducts and spread across the eyes by the wiper like motion that occurs with normal blinking. The eye at night becomes a static environment while you sleep, trapping bacteria on the surface of the ocular tissues. The eye has its own immune system that is ramped up at night to compensate for this increase in bacteria. The result is a state of mild inflammation that occurs in everybody

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Pink eye can cause any parent concern when they see their child come home from school with a pink to extremely red eye. Hemorrhagic forms of pinkeye cause small amounts of blood to spread out over the white part of the eye and the appearance exceeds their actual capacity to damage eyesight. The first scare is eye damage. Any over the counter eye drop treatments should be used under medical supervision as some drops can induce angle closure glaucoma in susceptible patients. There have been cases where individuals have gone blind from self treating with over the counter eye drops.

Glaucoma is increased pressure within the eye. Cells inside the eye produce a clear fluid ("aqueous humor") that maintains the eye's shape and nourishes the tissues inside the eye. The balance of fluid production and drainage is responsible for maintaining normal pressure within the eye. In glaucoma, the drain becomes clogged, but the eye continue producing fluid, resulting in increase eye pressure, which can actually can cause the eye to stretch and enlarge, in addition to blinding the eye. Glaucoma is not limited to humans - it can affect your pets, too!

There is something quite unsettling about the idea of slowly losing eyesight to a silent predator. To not know that the vision is slowly disintegrating and the optic nerve being destroyed. This silent assailant of vision is called glaucoma. It is not something that can be seen with the naked eye nor can the slow damages be felt. Many individuals never know they have it until a routine eye exam turns it up.

It used to be that nobody new what glaucoma was. Old age meant losing one's senses, whether it was hearing or sight. However, because of increased research, doctors and scientists now know that glaucoma is a serious condition that not only affects the elderly but the young too. Because of this, there glaucoma TV spots have become more and more common.

If you've been diagnosed with glaucoma and have been been thinking about getting laser surgery as a treatment and are wondering what the procedure for glaucoma laser surgery is, I'll explain in this article how it's done. Laser surgery is used to help control glaucoma. If you're using glaucoma medicines now, either eye drops or oral medications, you may be suffering from the side effects of these drugs.

The good news is that glaucoma is an eye disease that can be treated. The bad news is that any damage that has already been caused by glaucoma cannot be repaired; it will either stay the same or get worse. The best chance for anyone who contracts this eye disease has is to catch the development early, as treatment for glaucoma is more successful the earlier it is discovered.