[masraum]

Originally Posted by recycled sixtie

Had not been for an eye check up for about a year and a half and for the last few years have been going to Costco eye docs. This time round I went to a local eye doc in a health clinic. He did a more thorough examination of the eyes with eye dilation.

He noticed that both optic nerves are not quite normal and there is some cupping.
He concluded that I may have some glaucoma but the eyeball pressures are normal.
I was not aware that you could have the start of glaucoma with normal eye pressure but apparently this is the case.

Doc is moderately concerned and will do field vision tests in two weeks. My mother had glaucoma starting in her eighties and had degraded vision for the rest of her life. It is good that the doc caught this early and further deterioration can be prevented by eye drops or an operation. The concern is that even normal eyeball pressure is not good for this situation and the pressure needs to be lowered.

So my suggestion is to have a thorough eye check up as like anything else in health(eg. blood pressure, prostate condition) if it is not checked then correction is likely harder to achieve than prevention.

Yes, there is a low pressure glaucoma. My wife's family has some history of it.

https://www.glaucoma.org/glaucoma/normal-tension-glaucoma.php

Also called low-tension or normal-pressure glaucoma, in normal-tension glaucoma the optic nerve is damaged even though the pressure in the eye is not very high. Doctors do not know why some people’s optic nerves are damaged even though they have almost normal pressure levels. Those at higher risk for this form of glaucoma are:
- people with a family history of normal-tension glaucoma
- people of Japanese ancestry
- people with a history of systemic heart disease such as irregular heart rhythm.

How Normal-tension Glaucoma is Different

Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that usually share common traits, such as high eye pressure, damage to the optic nerve and gradual sight loss. Most kinds of glaucoma involve elevated eye pressure. Normal-tension glaucoma (NTG), also known as low tension or normal pressure glaucoma, is a form of glaucoma in which damage occurs to the optic nerve without eye pressure exceeding the normal range. In general, a "normal" pressure range is between 12-22 mm Hg.