Glaucoma steals your sight in a silent, steady and efficient manner. We need to stay careful always and never let our guards down. And what better way to do that than being informed of the facts and aware of the myths? But before we go there, let’s understand what glaucoma actually is.
Glaucoma is damage in the optic nerve. Optic nerve is the nerve which carries information from eye to the brain and vice versa. Naturally, when your optic nerve is damaged, your vision is affected, or even lost!
Glaucoma Myth: It affects only the elderly.
Glaucoma Fact: Don’t let your age fool you. Glaucoma can even be congenital. True, as you age, your risk increases. But even other diseases may cause glaucoma in a younger age.
Glaucoma Myth: You will get glaucoma only if your eyes were under elevated pressure.
Glaucoma Fact: Elevated eye pressure cause damage to your eye. But what counts as normal pressure for me, maybe elevated for you. Plus, it has been reported by medical statistics that even eyes under relatively ‘normal’ pressure has been affected by glaucoma.
Glaucoma Myth: Glaucoma leads to blindness.
Glaucoma Fact: Yes. But only if it is left undiagnosed until it leads to blindness. If glaucoma is diagnosed early, nearly all cases can be treated successfully. But for that, we need to go for regular eye checkups by an expert. (There are no self-test for glaucoma).
Glaucoma Myth: Glaucoma is entirely genetic.
Glaucoma Fact: Genetics is a contributing factor when it comes to risks of glaucoma. Even certain ethnic groups run a higher risk of getting affected but glaucoma. But that in no way means that you cannot be the first person in your entire family to suffer from glaucoma.
Glaucoma Myth: No high bp, no glaucoma
Glaucoma Fact: Wrong. The same goes with diabetes also. The causal factors of glaucoma only increases the risk; absence of a causal factor does not mean you are safe. Just because you don’t match one of the risk factors, does not mean that you are entirely safe.
Glaucoma Myth: Glaucoma blurs your vision before it kills your vision.
Glaucoma Fact: This is probably the most dangerous myth related to glaucoma. Most of the times, glaucoma shows no symptoms – one day you can see both day and night; and the next day, it’s all dark night. Sometimes, it give a little heads up but only after it has reached a very advanced stage.
Glaucoma Myth: Glaucoma and Cataract are very complicated together.
Glaucoma Fact: This is, kind of, true. Any eye condition is complicated. And if you have two at the same time, it’s bound to be even more complicated. But only for the patient, not for the doctor. The treatment of one does not affect the treatment of the other. In fact, sometimes, an ophthalmologist can fix both the conditions in one single surgery.
Glaucoma Myth: If you don’t need glasses, you won’t have glaucoma.
Glaucoma Fact: You require glasses because of defects in your retina, a layer at the back of your eye. Glaucoma is damage in the optic nerve. You see, there is no connection at all.
Glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness in India. This is because 90% cases of glaucoma remain undiagnosed. It’s high time that we go for an eye check up (it’s not difficult – it’s painless and takes only 20 minutes or so) and see if we are at any risk and if we do, get started with the treatment for glaucoma as the earliest.
About the Hospital:
Sri Sri Holistic Hospital is a leading 100 bedded Multi Specialty Hospital in Nizampet, Kukatpally, Hyderabad. Sri Sri Holistic Hospital provides high standards of Health Care with a combination of Advanced Technology and state of art clinical expertise. With more than 52 Internationally Experienced Doctors and 400 staff, we served at least 50,000 patients so far.
