We live in a visual world. Colors and shapes, contrasts and camouflage, movement and stillness. None of us really want to lose any of our senses, but to go blind after a life of sight is especially painful. Quite a few medical conditions can lead to blindness, but one of the most common causes is glaucoma. This can be detected with a simple test in the eye doctor’s office and by treating this early can save your sight.
January is National Glaucoma month. Glaucoma is one of the most common eye conditions, affecting more than 3 million Americans. Likely, many of you reading this have it and could probably be able to teach me a thing or two, so forgive me if I miss something or pass over it. Glaucoma is an eye condition that results in the loss of vision. Left untreated, glaucoma slowly kills the retina — the part of the eye that is an extension of the brain that translates light into the chemical and electrical signals that your brain interprets as the world we live in. Glaucoma often goes undetected, since, for most individuals, there are no symptoms such as pain or blurred vision. The other reason that glaucoma can go without detection is that the nerves it destroys first are in the periphery and not the central vision that would be most noticed. There are two main forms of glaucoma. The most common type of ...
