Vision loss is a subtle transition that can snowball in a person's 40's, or as early as shortly after birth. Maintaining vigilance over our own eye health can save us from irreversible damage, and all it takes is visits to the eye doctor and understanding how ubiquitous this health hurdle can be.
How the Eye Works
Across the lifespan, the importance of monitoring the health of your eyes is crucial for optimizing your vision to its fullest potential. Research and advancements emerge every year to provide insight into how the eye works, what affects it, how to heal and protect it, and more. While some tirelessly investigate ways to repair damage done over time, some conditions currently can only be fought against or treated but not cured. Yet. No matter the case, it is important for everyone, regardless of age, to see the truth about eye health with 20-20 vision.
Every part of the eye plays a role in allowing us to see as we do. After passing through the clear sclera, vision- in the form of light- is directed by the cornea, like glass lenses are curved to manipulate light. While the cornea gives rough focus, like the first setting of a microscope, the retina provides the sharper focus before an image gets sent to the optic nerve and up to the brain.
Eye problems are not bias. Though time wears away at some abilities, youth is not a shield against visual impairment or other related ailments. Glaucoma is a condition of the eye that tarnishes the ability of fluid to properly flow as it needs to. This impeded flow causes an increase in eye pressure, or IOP. This pressure, in turn, damages important components at the back of the eye, which leads to damaging the optic nerve, the set of nerve fibers that sends images from the eye to the brain for processing. Because this structure is made up of nerve cells, damage to it is, as of yet, irreparable. Prescription lenses can improve vision, but an elevated IOP can take normally healthy eyes and render them near blind without glasses or contacts.
Subtle or Swift: The Dual Nature of Glaucoma
Glaucoma comes in two forms. Most prevalent is open-angle glaucoma. When fluid flows properly through the eye, it is supposed to pass through an area called the angle. This angle could be sufficiently wide enough for fluid to pass, but the passage of time causes clogging, and results in the characteristic buildup of pressure and permanent damage to the optic nerve. This particular type of glaucoma is known as the silent thief of vision, as the damage is done gradually in the later years of a person's life, and goes untreated enough to be ranked the second leading cause of blindness nationwide.
That does not need to be the case, however, as numerous treatments exist for alleviating glaucoma, from drops to pills to specialized surgery that completely eases the buildup of IOP. Eye doctors need to know that there is a problem, though, in order to recommend treatments. Because of its subtle, gradual buildup, open-angle glaucoma needs a sharp eye to catch it. Your sharp eyes, and those of your eye doctor. Symptoms such as headaches and blurred vision will not arise at an early stage of open-angle glaucoma; the most efficient way to catch it is with checkups with your eye doctor and thorough examinations that includes pictures of the optic nerve and reading your eye pressures. If the IOP numbers creep up into the high teens or early 20s, intervention may be prescribed.
Open-angle glaucoma is particularly relevant among those 50 years of age and up. But that does not mean everyone else is immune to it. Less common, but just as devastating, congenital glaucoma is a type of angle closure glaucoma where incorrect fetal development leads to a blockage in the eye's drainage system. This condition acts fast, inducing symptoms such as headache and eye pain as early as a year after birth- or sooner. In this case, the angle where fluid is to drain is right away too narrow to allow for adequate flow, and the same sequence ensues where pressure builds up and the optic nerve is damaged. Additionally, trauma to the eye can cause a potentially dangerous increase in IOP. Even wearing certain contact lenses can affect the IOP, because it is a- relatively- large presence draped over a fair amount of the eye. Contact lenses do not inherently cause glaucoma- far from it. However, certain materials and manufacturers will suit different people, and if you are in doubt it is always safer to get your pressures measured.
Choosing the next approach once corrective treatment is necessary can require a fair bit of thought as well. As can choosing medicine for other, unrelated conditions. Certain medications that affect blood pressure will warn people with glaucoma to consult their doctors before using it. This is because of the potential it has in elevating your IOP. Eye surgery needs to be carefully chosen and performed by a skilled hand. Procedures such as LASIK surgery and PRK have gained attention over the years for being popular ways of reshaping the cornea in a way similar to how contact lenses can provide different shapes and angles to direct the path of light through our eye and give us better vision. The differences are subtle, but while LASIK is the newer of the two, part of the process requires creating a hinge from the cornea, which has the potential to increase the patient's IOP. PRK does not require such a flap. Here again, it is apparent how one simple fact, one difference between two very similar procedures, can change a person's eye health.
Eye health is not exclusive to certain ages; the picture of someone with visual impairment is not exclusively that of a senior citizen, but rather of anyone. But time is of the essence. Timely exams and quick responses can completely cut off the effects of conditions such as glaucoma before they even gain momentum. Even though no changes are visible through our own eyes, deeper mechanisms are at play beneath our lids, and it only takes a few tests to tell exactly what the situation is. Senior citizens, babies, and everyone in between needs to be mindful of the health of their eyes. Everyone only has two at most, and damage to certain parts of it can be permanent. But most often, preventative action avoids that damage all together. While researchers develop new ways to improve our vision, it is crucial that eye health is seen clearly so we can see the world just as well. Using sharp judgment will guarantee your eyes stay just as sharp long into the future.
