When you see your eye doctor, they often put drops in your eyes and then they touch the surface of your eye with a little device. They are testing the pressure within the eye. This is one of the main ways they test for signs of glaucoma.

The term glaucoma actually refers to a group of diseases or conditions that result in damage to the optic nerve. Many people are not aware they have glaucoma, so they go untreated until it’s too late, which is one reason that glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness. In most cases, if caught early enough, glaucoma is treatable, but it’s estimated that about 10% of people diagnosed with glaucoma early on, still end up with some or total loss of vision.

Technically, glaucoma is not curable, but if found in the early stages, it can be treated with medication and/or surgery.

Contrary to popular belief, glaucoma is NOT a disease of the old, but can hit anyone from a new baby to and older adult.

Additionally, not all forms of glaucoma involve increased eye pressure. Low-tension or normal tension glaucoma does not involve increased pressure in the eye. This is more commonly referred to as open-angle glaucoma and can strike anyone regardless of age, ethnicity or gender.

Since glaucoma refers to a group of eye diseases, they are not all caused by the same thing.

My daughter is susceptible to glaucoma due to her rare genetic condition known as McCune Albright Syndrome. It’s not necessarily the MAS that has caused her loss of vision and there appears to be no damage to her optic nerve which is indicative of glaucoma. However, she has had very high spinal fluid pressure which can impact the pressure in her eyes, so her eye doctor watches her very carefully.

A recent study is shedding light on a newly discovered cause of glaucoma:

“A research team from Massachusetts Eye and Ear and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has shown that immune cells in the eye that developed in response to early exposure to bacteria are a key contributor to progressive vision loss from glaucoma, the second leading cause of irreversible blindness in the world. The findings, published online in Nature Communications, suggest that high pressure in the eye leads to vision loss by setting into motion an autoimmune response that attacks the neurons in the eye—similar to immune responses triggered by bacterial infections. The discovery of these immune cells also reveals a promising new target for future therapies to be developed for the blinding condition.”

“‘Our work shows that there is hope for finding a cure for glaucoma, or even preventing its development entirely, if we can find a way to target this pathway,’ said co-senior author Dong Feng Chen, M.D., Ph.D., a vision scientist at Mass. Eye and Ear and associate professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. ‘Current glaucoma therapies are designed solely to lower eye pressure; however, we’ve known that, even when patients with glaucoma are treated and their eye pressure returns to normal, they can still go on to have vision loss. Now, we know that stress from high eye pressure can initiate an immune response that triggers T cells to attack neurons in the eye’.”

“These findings shed light on a process that largely has remained a mystery until now.”

If you have ever had any kind of eye infection or been treated for one, you may want to make sure your eye doctor knows about this latest research so he or she can regularly test you for any signs of glaucoma. Remember, the sooner it’s found, the more likely it is that it can be treated and your vision preserved. Don’t think it won’t happen to you, because if you do, the only vision you could end up with is hindsight.