Glaucoma Treatment in Brooklyn, NY
Brighton Eye specializes in the treatment of patients with glaucoma. We have state of the art equipment that helps us better diagnose, follow, and treat patients with glaucoma. For residents of NYC, glaucoma care can be given in the comfort of our office by our board-certified ophthalmologists.
What is Glaucoma?
Glaucoma is an eye disease that, if left untreated, can lead to blindness. In patients with glaucoma, the eye pressure is usually (but not always) higher than normal. Clear fluid is made in the eye and is drained through a special passage called the trabecular meshwork. In patients with glaucoma, this drain is damaged or partially obstructed and the fluid cannot leave the eye, thus raising the eye pressure. High eye pressure causes damage to the optic nerve which slowly leads to loss of vision. In glaucoma, the drain of the eye gets plugged, and fluid coming into the eye cannot get out, raising the eye pressure. This high eye pressure causes nerve damage, which leads to loss of sight.
How Do I Know if I Have Glaucoma?
In the most common type of glaucoma, patients do not feel any pain or loss of vision early in the disease. Because peripheral vision is lost first, the disease goes unnoticed until irreversible damage occurs. To know whether or not you have glaucoma, you need a full ophthalmic evaluation. We are prepared to evaluate you in our office based in Brooklyn, NYC. Glaucoma is something we take seriously.
Can I Feel My Eye Pressure Rise?
The diagnosis of glaucoma is accomplished by a personal analysis of several factors: intraocular pressure, optic nerve appearance on dilated exam. Corneal Pachymetry (Corneal Thickness), HRT (computerized optic nerve analysis), gonioscopy (exam of the drainage angles), and visual fields. Each one of these elements forms an important piece of the puzzle when deciding whether you have glaucoma.
How is Glaucoma Treated?
There are many different kinds of glaucoma, divided into two broad categories: open angle and closed/narrow-angle glaucoma. Depending on the type of glaucoma, various treatment modalities exist. Open-angle glaucoma is treated with drops, the SLT laser, and sometimes surgery; while closed/narrow-angle glaucoma is treated with a laser peripheral iridotomy and sometimes laser iridoplasty.
There are many different glaucoma eye drop medications for treating open angle glaucoma, and they lower eye pressure by either reducing the amount of fluid produced in the eye or opening the trabecular meshwork, or drain of the eye. Most people with glaucoma use at least one eye drop medication to lower their eye pressure.
Another way to lower eye pressure in open-angle glaucoma is with laser therapy. A common laser treatment for NYC in patients with glaucoma is called selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT). In SLT, laser treatment is applied to the drain of your eye to open it up and let fluid out, lowering the eye pressure and saving your sight. SLT treatment takes only a few minutes, is performed in the office (not the operating room), is safe, and effectively lowers eye pressure in most people. The treatment is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating glaucoma and is covered by most all insurance plans.
In narrow-angle glaucoma, we use a laser to open up the drainage angles of the eye with laser peripheral iridotomy (PI). Peripheral iridotomy creates another conduit for the fluid building up inside the eye, which opens up the angles, and prevents an acute glaucoma attack from occurring.