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]