Effective Ways To Treat Glaucoma

By Tammie Caldwell


Glaucoma can be treated with pills, drops, traditional surgery, laser surgery or a combination of these procedures. The goal of any treatment is to prevent loss of vision. The treatment aims to reduce the pressure in the affected eye called intraocular pressure. Any damage to your vision caused by glaucoma cannot be repaired so it is important to get an early diagnosis and treatment or prevent further damage.

Glaucoma cannot be cured and damaged caused by this disease cannot be reversed, but treatment and regular checkups can prevent vision loss in people with early glaucoma. If vision loss has already occurred, treatment for glaucoma San Antonio TX can slow or prevent further vision loss.

The treatment for this eye problem usually starts with medicated eyedrops. Make sure to use the drops as prescribed. Otherwise, your optic nerve damage could get even worse. If your doctor prescribed more than one type of eyedrop, just be sure to ask how long to wait between applications and taking the drops as your physician prescribed them.

Sometimes, when these drops are not sufficient of controlling the IOP, pills can be given to you in addition to eye drops. These pills are having more systematic side effects than the drops. Pills often turn down the faucet of your eyes and lessen fluid production. This medication is taken two to four times daily. It is important to share this information to your doctor to avoid harmful interactions.

When medications do not achieve the desired results, and show intolerable side effects, your ophthalmologist may recommend you surgery. Laser surgery has become popular as a transitional step between traditional surgery and drugs though the long term success rates are variable. This method is painless and only takes 10 to 15 minutes and can be performed to an outpatient facility.

You may return home and resume your daily activities after the surgery. Your physician checks the IOP one to two hours after the laser surgery. While it may take weeks to see the effect of the procedure, during this time, you may have continue taking your medication. Your doctor will be the one to judge whether or not you still need any medication.

Complications from this surgical operation are only lesser. For this reason, it has become increasingly popular and most facilities are suggesting to use this method before drops to many patients. Basically, when medications and laser treatments are still not sufficient to lower eye pressure, your doctor may recommend you conventional surgery.

Some patients no longer require glaucoma medications after the surgical procedure for a length of time. A trabeculectormy is often an outpatient procedure. The number of operative visits to the doctor may vary and some activities such as reading, driving, heavy lifting and bending must be limited for 2 to 4 weeks following a surgical procedure.

If you have checked and diagnosed having this eye problem, your condition will be closely monitored for further damage. Depending on how the disease progressed, you still need to see either an ophthalmologist or optometrist in San Antonio TX to.




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