What is glaucoma?

Glaucoma is a terrible disease that slowly robs a patient of their vision without their knowledge. It is called a "silent thief" of vision. A person will usually not know they have glaucoma until significant, irreversible damage has occurred. In a way, it is similar to diabetes and high blood pressure. All these diseases are usually unknown to the patient, but each causes significant damage to the human body.

Glaucoma causes blindness by slowly destroying neurons (brain cells) that form the optic nerve. The optic nerve is the major nerve that transmits light signals to the brain. When the optic nerve gets damaged, less light signals are transmitted to the brain. Eventually, glaucoma causes so much damage that almost no light signals are transmitted to the brain and blindness is the result. Once damage has occurred to the optic nerve, it is irreversible. Damage is permanent and the vision that has been lost can never be restored.

One of the saddest things that I have seen too many times is a glaucoma patient who was either undiagnosed or improperly treated who comes to my office seeking help. They come in having lost more than 90% of their vision and ask if anything can be done. I sadly state to these patients that if you had come to me or another qualified eye professional many years ago, then we could have done something. What I can do is significantly reduce future damage from occurring to the optic nerve. Unfortunately, I cannot restore a patient's vision. Once that optic nerve is damaged from glaucoma, there is no way to reverse the damage. That is why it is so important to both be screened for glaucoma and if you are diagnosed with glaucoma, for you to be properly treated. Here at the Glaucoma Center of Hawaii, we have the most advanced diagnostic equipment for the early detection of glaucoma. One of these new technologies is called OCT (optical coherence tomography). This uses a special type of laser that can show the changes from glaucoma many years earlier than other older technologies.

What can I do if I am found to have glaucoma?

The good news is that if glaucoma is found, there are fantastic new ways to treat glaucoma. Some of these treatment modalities include the use of eye drop medicines that were not available until recently. There are many different classes of eye drop medicines that have been found to greatly help prevent glaucoma damage from occurring.

Other treatment modalities include the use of modern lasers, lasers that did not become available until recently. SLT (selective laser trabeculoplasty) has only been introduced for general use within the past few years and it has been found to be highly effective in most glaucoma patients. Here at the Glaucoma Center of Hawaii, we have the SLT laser for the treatment of glaucoma. I wanted my patients to have access to the same cutting edge technology as that found at any top medical center in the country. In addition to diagnosing and treating glaucoma, we also screen patients for all other eye diseases.