Glaucoma is damage to the optic nerve, usually caused by raised pressure inside the eye. It is painless, symptomless and irreversible in its common form, and it destroys peripheral vision first. Treatment — drops, laser or surgery — protects remaining sight but cannot restore what is lost. Screening is recommended from age 40, and earlier if a parent or sibling has glaucoma. Clear Vision provides pressure testing, visual field analysis and optic nerve imaging at all 20 branches.
What glaucoma does
Your eye continuously produces a fluid that drains away through a mesh at the angle where the iris meets the cornea. When drainage falls behind production, pressure inside the eye rises. The optic nerve — the cable of roughly a million fibres carrying vision to the brain — is squeezed, and fibres begin to die.
They die from the outside in. You lose the far edges of your vision first, then progressively inward, until only a narrow central tunnel remains. Because the brain quietly fills in missing edges, most patients notice nothing until a great deal is already gone.
Who should be screened
- Everyone from age 40, every one to two years
- A parent, sibling or child with glaucoma — risk rises several-fold; start earlier
- Known high eye pressure
- Diabetes or high blood pressure
- High myopia (a large minus number)
- Long-term use of steroid drops or tablets
- Previous eye injury or eye surgery
How we test for it
Glaucoma cannot be diagnosed from pressure alone. A proper assessment looks at three things together:
| Tonometry | Measures the pressure inside the eye |
|---|---|
| Optic nerve examination | Looks directly at the nerve head for cupping and thinning |
| Visual field analysis | Maps your peripheral vision to find gaps you cannot feel |
| Gonioscopy | Examines the drainage angle to identify the type of glaucoma |
| Pachymetry | Corneal thickness, which affects how pressure readings are interpreted |
Treatment options
Eye drops
First-line treatment for most patients. They either reduce fluid production or improve drainage. They work only while you use them — which is the hardest part of glaucoma treatment, because you feel exactly the same whether you take them or not. Take them daily, at the same time, without fail.
Laser
Laser trabeculoplasty improves outflow through the eye's own drainage mesh. Laser iridotomy creates a tiny opening in the iris to relieve or prevent angle closure. Both are outpatient procedures done under drops.
Surgery
Where drops and laser are not enough, filtration surgery creates a controlled new drainage channel to lower pressure durably.
Frequently asked questions
Can vision lost to glaucoma be recovered?
No. Glaucoma damages the optic nerve, and optic nerve fibres do not regenerate. Every treatment is aimed at protecting the vision you still have by lowering eye pressure and halting further damage. This is why glaucoma is one of the few eye conditions where screening genuinely changes lives: caught early, sight is preserved; caught late, it cannot be given back.
Who should be screened for glaucoma?
Everyone from the age of 40, and earlier and more often if you have a parent or sibling with glaucoma, are of South Asian or African descent, have high eye pressure, diabetes, high myopia, or have used steroid eye drops or tablets for long periods. A family history raises your risk several times over.
Does glaucoma have symptoms?
Open-angle glaucoma, the common form, has no symptoms at all in its early and middle stages. It removes peripheral vision so gradually that the brain fills in the gaps, and most patients only notice once a large amount of sight is permanently gone.
Acute angle-closure glaucoma is the exception: severe eye pain, redness, haloes around lights, headache and vomiting. That is an emergency requiring treatment within hours.
Will I need to use eye drops for life?
In most cases, yes. Pressure-lowering drops work only while they are being used, so stopping them allows pressure to rise and damage to continue. They must be taken every day at the same time, exactly as prescribed, even though you will feel no different either way. Where drops are insufficient or poorly tolerated, laser or surgery can lower pressure more durably.