Glaucoma: The sneak thief of your eyesight

Glaucoma is an eye disease that gradually steals sight without warning. In the early stages of the disease, there are normally no symptoms. It can be caused when there is an increase of pressure inside eye that damages the optical nerve, which connects the eye to the brain, explains Dr Cyprian Ntomoka, the Head CCBRT’s [Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania] Eye Department and a Consultant Opthalmologist.

“Glaucoma results when the amount of fluids which enters the eye is more than that goes out.

This causes the amount of fluid inside to increase, destroying the nerves around the eye.

When this happens, the fluid in the eye increases, which causes high pressure in the eye and results to slowly failing of eye nerves,” he adds.

Dr Ntomoka says that the disease is difficult to identify in the early stages because there is no direct indications or signs for the disease, which means the patient starts losing sight slowly without realising. Hence, patients start seeking treatment when they are already in the last stage of losing sight.

“We don’t have the habit of checking our eye health when we are not sick. So due to the nature of this disease, it is difficult to discover the problem early, majority of people end up losing sight,” says Dr Ntomoka.

He noted that many hardships that come today is the result of delaying yesterday’s decision or ignoring some things that we are supposed to do.

For example if people decide to check their eyes at least once a year, it is easy to discover the problem earlier before it becomes worse, making it easy to treat or prevent from more damage.

Everyone is at risk for glaucoma from babies to senior citizens. Older people are at a higher risk for glaucoma but babies can be born with glaucoma. Young adults can get glaucoma, too.

Type of glaucoma

Other forms of glaucoma include congenital glaucoma, where one is born with the condition. Secondary glaucoma is related to another eye disorder or disease, for instance eye injury, bleeding, eye tumor, uveitis (inflammation of the uvea, the middle part of the eye) or a very mature cataract.

Unlike in adults, where there are often no obvious early symptoms for glaucoma, in children it is fairly easy for parents and health care providers to recognise it. The signs for congenital glaucoma include:

• Cloudy large corneas.

• Photophobia, which refers to abnormal sensitivity to light.

• Tearing.

These symptoms can be picked out right after birth, or in late childhood. The type that occurs in late childhood (between three to 16 years) is referred to as juvenile glaucoma.

Treatment

According Dr Ntomoka, Glaucoma is not curable, and vision lost cannot be regained. With medication and/or surgery, it is possible to halt further loss of vision. Since open-angle glaucoma is a chronic condition, it must be monitored for life. Diagnosis is the first step to preserving your vision. However the risk of losing sight can be minimised by the following:

1. Use of medicine/drops: Glaucoma can mostly be controlled by eye drops. This becomes an ongoing process. The drops are used to reduce pressure in the eye but it doesn’t completely heal the eye. The treatment will need to continue for the rest of the patient’s life.

2. Operation: The surgery can be done to correct the patient’s eye. The doctors will operate to create a hole which will be used to pass fluids.

After the surgery, the person will have to visit the hospital at least once a year in order to check if the hole still exists because in the process of healing, there are chances for it to be blocked.

Glaucoma is the disease which can neither be discovered easily nor can be cured and the vision that has already lost cannot be restored.

But the vision loss can be prevented by using medicine or surgery. The most important thing is for every one of us to build the behaviour of checking our eyes at least once a year in order to be sure, says Dr Ntomoka.

“We need to love our eyes; let’s have the habit to get checked at least once a year. It is one thing to be born without sight and another thing to lose sight when we are adults,” he added.

“And for the ones who come to the hospital in the late stage when they have already lost their sight, let’s agree to the situation; losing sight does not mean the end of life, a human being hassix senses so if you lose one, there is still hope for other five,” he says.