Do you know the symptoms of glaucoma?

Glaucoma is a very common disease. Its early symptoms mainly include gradual decrease in vision, headache due to drinking too much water, soreness and swelling at the base of the nose bridge and eye socket and forehead pain, eye swelling, headache, and blurred vision. When these symptoms appear, people should pay special attention and seek treatment in time.

1. What are the early symptoms of glaucoma?

1. The vision gradually decreases, and the vision correction after eye examination and glasses fitting is less than 1.0 (the logarithmic vision chart is 5.0). Especially for those with high myopia, they still often have headaches and eye swelling after wearing appropriate glasses. Due to high myopia, the sclera (white part of the eye) becomes longer and its elasticity decreases significantly. Therefore, when high intraocular pressure occurs, the subjective symptoms are not obvious or are asymptomatic, patients are prone to neglect it, and vision is quietly lost, and doctors often miss the diagnosis.

2. Glaucoma patients usually drink a lot of water, and they will experience headaches when they drink more than 300 ml of water at a time. This is because drinking water quickly and in large amounts can dilute the blood, causing the osmotic pressure to decrease. The amount of aqueous humor entering the eye will increase, thereby causing the intraocular pressure to increase. Patients often experience eye swelling and headache 15 to 30 minutes after drinking water.

3. It is difficult to read books and newspapers after getting up in the morning, and you may easily experience soreness and swelling at the base of the nose and pain in the eye sockets and forehead. Because the intraocular pressure of a normal person fluctuates during the day and night, it is generally higher in the early morning and lower at night. The intraocular pressure of glaucoma patients fluctuates more within 24 hours, so the intraocular pressure is higher in the morning and symptoms will appear.

4. When you are emotionally excited or stay in a dark place for too long (such as watching movies, TV or working in a dark room), you will experience eye swelling, headache, blurred vision, and a layer of fog in front of your eyes. These are early symptoms of angle-closure glaucoma. After repeated occurrences, it is possible to suddenly enter an acute attack phase.

5. At night, when you look at lights, you see colorful halos, just like a rainbow in the sky after rain. This is called iridescence in medicine. This is due to increased intraocular pressure and corneal edema, which causes changes in corneal refraction.

2. Can glaucoma be cured?

Glaucoma can cause optic nerve damage and visual field defects. Many patients ask, if intraocular pressure is controlled, vision and visual field can be improved. I regret to tell you that this is not possible. Because optic nerve damage and visual field damage caused by high intraocular pressure are irreversible and cannot be restored by current treatments. Treatment for glaucoma can only maintain the status quo so that the disease does not progress and the vision and field of view remain the same as before.

3. So can glaucoma be cured once and for all?

If it is primary angle-closure glaucoma, it can be cured in the early stages. By using laser to solve the problem of angle closure, many patients will never have a relapse in their lifetime. However, the vast majority of glaucoma cannot be cured. Glaucoma is a lifelong disease. Like diabetes and hypertension, it requires treatment to control intraocular pressure. Regular follow-up is required during treatment and the treatment plan should be adjusted according to changes in the condition.