Over the last dozen+ years I have carried reminders about once a year
that Bill kindly runs on slow days to help all remember to regularly
get their vision and eye pressure checked, this is especially true
after the age of 40.

The reason I do this is because I have chronic glaucoma myself, and
because half the people with glaucoma do not get regularly checked and
as a result they do not find the problem until it is too advanced to
do much about it. Instead what happens is they get used to gradually
having less and less peripheral vision until one day they realize that
a lot is gone.

Here are some ways I have noticed that behaviors can change with
glaucoma which may help you or a loved one find it in time:
1. Threading a needle in front of one eye instead of between both eyes.
Look for that with other crafts, too, like when opening small jumprings
w your pliers if you make jewelry, or when doing fine touch-up painting
on small figures for model train layouts. Loss of peripheral vision on
the nasal side can cause this change in behavior.
2. Bumping into things more or turning into people who have moved in
too close on your side, or knocking people when walking through tight
confines like a crowded train station. Loss of some of your lateral
peripheral vision can cause this.
3. Kicking your ferrets more when you walk, or more often stepping on
uneven surfaces without warning can be from losing some peripheral
vision near the bottom.
4. Realizing that you are more comfy in places you know can be because
you are unknowingly keeping detailed mental maps of places you know.
Alternatively, still going to new places but realizing how often you
need to scan areas, or missing large items on your side, can be an
indication. I actually missed an entire aisle on one side a couple
of weeks ago which was my warning of a large change.
5. Looking "shifty-eyed" to others, or turning your head more often
than before to see things can be due to logical and natural
compensating for reduction in visual field.

I don't drive but have read that frequency of car accidents can
increase at some point.

Many people assume that it will be someone else who get glaucoma but
there are multiple people on this list who have it or who have close
relatives with it, and there is likely to be one or more here who
ALREADY have glaucoma but do not yet know it because of not getting
checked. So, get checked; the vision you save will be your own.

There are many treatments for glaucoma, and the ones which will help
depend on how advanced it is, and on the individual. There are multiple
types of drops, and unlike earlier ones they really are not uncomfy.
There also are multiple types of laser surgery which also is pretty
easy. I've had two of those types, multiple times for one of them, and
there is another that is said to be even easier, as well as some on
which I have no info.

This Spring for one eye I finally will be having invasive eye surgery
because that eye has become far worse than the other so the coming
surgery is an approach that often can preserve core vision. We still
are a bit nervous since this is new news, but the more we learn about
it the less nervous we are. My other eye only has a bit of peripheral
loss and is stable so that is very good. So far I have gotten over a
dozen years of decent control till now for both of my eyes because my
glaucoma was caught early; if I'd been in a previous generation OR IF
I HAD NOT GOTTEN REGULAR EYE EXAMS I would have been blinded a decade
ago. Yet here I am all these years later seeing quite well w one eye
and rather well with the core of the other BECAUSE I GOT CHECKED.

There are multiple types of glaucoma. The most common is open angle
glaucoma. To read more I found some sites today that have clear
explanations, some of which are new to me:

http://www.metrohealth.org/body.cfm?id=3861

http://www.glaucoma.org/GRF_Understanding_Glaucoma_EN.pdf

http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/glaucoma/overview.html

http://www.glaucoma.org/GRF_Understanding_Glaucoma_EN.pdf

http://www.glaucomafoundation.org

Now, as everyone probably knows by now, the rate of diabetes and all
problems related to diabetes have increased in the U.S. due to
increases in obesity.

Did you know that glaucoma is one of the problems that increases in
rate with diabetes?

Other secondary causes of diabetes include but are not limited to the
use of corticosteroids, blunt injury to the eye, severe eye infection,
chemical injury to the eye, etc. I am so glad that I was never even
tempted by steroids back when I did serious weight training, partly
because I hated how it changed people's faces and privates. Few of the
women were interested but many of the men are probably paying for that
bad choice still.

Groups most prone to glaucoma -- so who in some cases should check more
often than every two years after age 40 and should check earlier --
include those with descent that is:
- African American
- Irish
- Russian
- Japanese (with this being the group most prone to low tension
  glaucoma, too)
- Hispanic
- Inuit
- Scandinavian
AND
of course, those with relatives who have glaucoma
AS WELL AS
those who are extremely near sighted (myopic)

With age and vulnerabilities the frequency of needed visits to an
ophthalmologist will increase.

I've got three of those descent origins, am older, and have a family
history of it, so with that combination the pressure checks for most
are needed at least annually starting even younger. (Currently, I need
to see an ophthalmologist four times a year in my good years and more
often otherwise.)

The trick with glaucoma is to CATCH IT EARLY BY BEING CHECKED. Some
eyes are still less responsive but the major reason that half the
people in the U.S. with glaucoma wind up blind is because they do not
have their eyes checked until the damage has progressed too far.

Should these reminders save even one person's sight they are totally
worth the time invested.

Sukie (not a vet) Ferrets make the world a game.

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html

"All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow."
(2010, Steve Crandall)

A nation is as free as the least within it.

[Posted in FML 7742]