Beware Of This 'Thief Of Sight' That Can Gradually Cause Blindness

NormanJB

Glaucoma, the silent thief of sight, is a group of diseases caused by damage to the optic nerve in the eye.

Without any warning signs or symptoms it will slowly take away the affected person’s eye sight and can even cause blindness if not treated appropriately.

Tanaletchimy Rajaratnam, 63, felt completely healthy and had no symptoms at the time she was diagnosed with high eye pressure during a routine eye screening in the UK.

With high eye pressure being the number one cause for glaucoma, she decided to start the treatment right away.

Taking the risk seriously, going for regular checkups and starting with the treatment early enough helped keeping the disease’s progress at bay.

This is the reason why today, 10 years after she was diagnosed with glaucoma, her eye sight has not been significantly affected.

Without early detection and swift action, this could have played out very differently.

Without early detection and swift action, this could have played out very differently.

Another patient’s son, Mr Wong, told MalaysianDigest, at the Tun Hussein Onn National Eye Hospital that his 75 year old father had been affected by glaucoma for a long time without even noticing it.

Only after the disease had already severely damaged his eyes and even started to cause pain, he finally consulted a doctor.

Without appropriate treatment, he is now at risk of going blind.

Before being diagnosed with the disease, like most people, both patients weren’t even aware of its existence. Like many other glaucoma patients in Malaysia, Wong and Tanaletchimy accounts of the onset of the disease highlights the invisible nature of this condition until it is too late.

The Malaysia Glaucoma Society had produced the following public announcement about this disease a few years back to create awareness of this 'silent thief of sight'.

The World Glaucoma Week held in March each year takes place on 12 to 18 March 2017 and to help raise awareness, we have decided to highlight this often 'invisible' illness and look at a local eye hospital's role in helping glaucoma patients.

The Silent Thief Of Sight

If the optic nerve that connects the eye to the brain is too damaged, it will not be able to send an accurate and complete picture to the brain causing reduced eye sight.

This results in people having blurry vision and a restricted field of view or missing objects in their view.

Glaucoma usually comes without any symptoms and often stays undetected for a long time.

Not always, but very often, glaucoma is caused by high eye pressure damaging the optic nerves.

To be more specific, glaucoma usually develops when the production of an eye fluid called aqueous humour either increases or fails to drain properly.

This causes the pressure in the eye to rise which can damage the fibres in the optic nerve resulting in interruptions to the transmission of visual messages to the brain.

Eye drops are used to reduce the eye pressure and keep it stable to prevent further damage to the nerves.

Eye pressure is the main cause for glaucoma, but not required for its development.

People with normal eye pressure can still be affected, while people with high eye pressure are more likely to be at risk but don’t necessarily develop the disease.

It is estimated that half of the people affected by glaucoma do not know that they have it, which is a serious problem because if left undetected and untreated it can lead to blindness.

According to the World Health Organization, Glaucoma is the second most common cause of blindness worldwide and it is estimated that 4.5 million persons globally are blind due to glaucoma.

“If left untreated, most types of glaucoma progress (without warning nor obvious symptoms to the patient) towards gradually worsening visual damage and may lead to blindness,” states the World Glaucoma Association.

Since there is no cure, the damage caused to the optic nerves and the reduced eye sight are irreversible, therefore it is important to detect it early.

“There is no cure for glaucoma as yet, and vision loss is irreversible. However medication or surgery (conventional or laser) can halt or slow-down any further vision loss. Therefore, early detection is essential to limiting visual impairment and preventing the progression towards severe visual handicap or blindness,” states the World Glaucoma Association.

Source - MD