Glaucoma Checkup

For those of you who don't know, I have glaucoma. It's not something that really impacts my life at the moment because I'm young and it was caught in the early stages, but it's still a condition that I am saddled with. I can't complain, of course. I have to take one eye-drop per eye every day. My daughter has somewhere around 25 pills a day of various types, as well as other treatments for her cystic fibrosis.

Yesterday I was at Naval Medical Center San Diego (otherwise known as Balboa Navy Hospital) for my semi-annual checkup. They will become annuals from now on. When I was diagnosed, my eye pressures were 28 in my right eye and 20 in my left. Good scores are 10-20, so my left was borderline and my right was off the charts, literally.

Thankfully, with the treatments and catching it early, my pressures are now 14 in each eye, well within limits. That doesn't mean that I still won't suffer some optical nerve damage someday and lose some of my eyesight, but it does mean that hopefully we've put off that damage significantly. God is good to me. Had I not had a simple desire for a new pair of reading glasses, it wouldn't have been caught.

For those who are interested in the details, I have what is called Pigment Dispersion Syndrome. Basically, my iris pigment leaks into my eye drainage and clogs it up, which increases pressure in my eye because the fluids that are in my eye and supposed to drain out can't. Even if the pigment dispersion could be stopped, I would still have glaucoma because it had already caused the problem. Had it been caught before I developed glaucoma, I would have probably been ok. So it goes.

Ironically, Pigment Dispersion Syndrome most likely won't cause my eye to lose its color. I felt weird asking that yesterday, but I figured it was something to learn.

So I have a relatively clean bill of health to move forward on for my trip to Great Lakes this summer. Once I get there, I'll check in with an ophthalmologist and set up my next yearly appointment.