Treatment Options for Glaucoma

If you’ve recently been diagnosed with glaucoma, there are treatment options available that can help protect your vision. Depending on the type of glaucoma you’ve developed and how long you’ve had it, your optometrist in Pittsburgh, PA, will have solutions.

What Are My Treatment Options?

To stop vision loss caused by glaucoma, your eye doctor will try to lower the intraocular pressure of your eye. Usually, they’ll begin with the least invasive method and then take note of whether more treatment is needed. Treatment options for glaucoma in Pittsburgh may include:

• Prescription eyedrops
• Oral medications
• Laser therapy
• Eye surgery

Common Types of Glaucoma

Your treatment plan will hinge on the type of glaucoma with which you’ve been diagnosed: open-angle, angle-closure, or normal-tension . In the United States, 9 out of every 10 people with glaucoma have the open-angle version. This means too much pressure has built up in the eye and is causing damage, or is at risk of causing damage, to the optic nerve. This type of glaucoma may have very mild symptoms in the beginning, so mild that you don’t realize anything is wrong until it progresses and your vision becomes impaired.

If you develop angle-closure glaucoma, you’ll need emergency medical care, as this type can cause total vision loss in just a matter of days. Angle-closure glaucoma happens when a sudden build-up of fluid causes severe pressure. Symptoms include sudden, severe headache and intense eye pain.

Normal-tension glaucoma happens in patients who have normal eye pressure, and doctors are not sure why. However, heart problems and low blood pressure are linked to normal-tension glaucoma.

Help for Glaucoma in Pittsburgh, PA

For diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma in Pittsburgh, PA, contact Lappen Eye Care today. Regular eye exams that include glaucoma screenings are important, especially as you age or if you have a family history of glaucoma.