Testing for Glaucoma and Catching It Early
Get Those Eyes Dilated!
You know when you go to the eye doctor to get your eyes checked and they ask if you came with anybody? My first thought is always “I am an adult, I don’t need my mom to be here!” If you say that you did not come with anybody else to your very grown-up eye appointment, thank you very much, then the nice lady or gentleman checking your vision that day will ask if you want your eyes dilated. Hopefully they will help you make this decision by telling you that if you choose to get your eyes dilated, you may have trouble driving home from your appointment because your vision will be a little blurry for a few hours. If you do choose to get your eyes dilated, however, you are rewarded with a free pair of flimsy plastic sunglasses to protect your dilated, and thus light-sensitive, eyes. See the devilishly handsome example below:
You may see the debate “to get my eyes dilated, or not” as really a choice between driving home without those awesome sunglasses or driving home with those suckers lookin’ fly like a G-6 (don’t ask me what a G-6, I heard it in a pop song; those whipper-snappers listen to the darndest things!). If you find yourself facing this particular dilemma, you might want to consider refocusing your decision to be about your health instead. While the latest fashion trends in flimsy plastic eyewear are important, the real point of getting your eyes dilated is so your eye doctor can look inside your eye all the way back to the optic nerve to look for damage that may be caused by glaucoma. This kind of test for glaucoma is done by putting some drops in your eyes that make your pupil really big, and since the pupil’s size determines how much light can get into your eye, the bigger it is, the easier it is for your doctor to look through it and inside your eye. This test for glaucoma is so important because, again, the most common form of glaucoma rarely has symptoms before it begins to take away your vision, and by that time you cannot get your vision back. Therefore, when you are getting your vision checked, it is really a wise idea to either bring someone with you in case you feel uncomfortable driving with imperfect vision (no one will judge you if you bring your mom) or make high-fashion waves as you drive through the Medical Center rocking your FREE pair of totally cool sunglasses.
Getting Your Eyes “Puffed”
Another common way of testing your eyes for glaucoma is what I like to call “the puff.” For this test, the doctor holds a tool up close to your eye, just taking a peek, ya know, doing his or her job, when they tell you not to blink while they look for signs of glaucoma. “I wonder what glaucoma is?” you think to yourself just as - BOOM! The doctor just blew a bunch of air in your eye! “What the heck did they do that for?!” I cannot help but be scared by this every time it happens. But fear not, suspicious patient, the doctor did not do that to you just to see you jump and maybe pee your pants a little. They did it to test the intraocular pressure of your eye. Remember glaucoma causes the pressure in your eye to get too high, so blowing air on your eye will give the doctor’s tool a reading about the amount of pressure your eye is experiencing and allow he or she to determine if that number indicates a presence of glaucoma. Nowadays most ophthalmologists use “applanation tonometry” to check the pressure of your eyes with a different and a lot less scary device, but the concept is the same.
Of course further tests are always needed to provide an accurate diagnosis, and these two examples are among several other ways doctors look for warning signs of glaucoma. But these two tests in particular are especially useful because they are very quick and require relatively little time and energy from both the patient and the doctor, which saves you money. In fact, Medicare will pay for an annual eye exam that includes dilation for people with diabetes, people with a family history of glaucoma, and African Americans over age 50.
To get your eyes tested for glaucoma, schedule an appointment with South Texas Eye Institute today.