Grace Intro:
If you’ve ever been to the eye doctor and gotten a glaucoma test, then you might have wondered to yourself:
“What exactly is glaucoma? And how do I know if I have it?”
But perhaps even more importantly—if you did have some reason to suspect that you may be suffering from it, you might have wondered to yourself:
“If I DO have glaucoma, how can I help myself and start treating it?”
Well, these are good questions. As a general rule, you always want to consult a medical professional before diagnosing or treating any ailments or conditions.
With that being said—it’s also true that we always want to learn as much as we can when we fear that we may have reason to believe that we’re suffering from some kind of medical condition.
And obviously—if we can take some steps to help move us in a better direction—well, all the better, right?
So in this blog post, you’re going to learn about 3 methods that may be able to be used to help with glaucoma.
Just remember—always consult a medical professional before delving into any kind of ‘self-diagnosis’ or ‘self-treatment’ territory. This is important stuff to get right!
Alright. Let’s dive in.
First—What Is Glaucoma?
Glaucoma is the name for a group of eye conditions that can cause damage to the optic nerve.
Damage to this nerve can often be attributed (at least in part) to having high pressure within the eye.
But it’s also true that glaucoma can happen even when the eye is under ‘normal’ pressure.
It can occur at any age, though it’s more common as you get older.
It’s also one of the leading causes of blindness in people aged 60 and older.
Now, let’s talk about some things that can be done to help with the condition.
1. Prevention
One of the very best tools at your disposal for helping to deal with the risk of glaucoma is to work on preventing it before it ever starts.
This really begins with getting regular eye examinations, knowing your family’s glaucoma history, wearing proper eye protection when engaging in dangerous activities, and taking prescribed eyedrops every day if you’re at risk.
2. Eye Drops
Unfortunately, once the damage has been done by glaucoma, it can’t be reversed.
But this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take action to prevent further damage.
Eye drops are usually the first line of defense against further glaucoma damage—and for good reason.
Eye drops may help to decrease eye pressure by helping the eyes to drain extra fluid—which can decrease the amount of damage caused within the eye.
Your doctor may prescribe more than one type of eye drop, depending on how severe your case is.
But this is mostly a case-by-case basis thing—and there are a number of different types of eye drops that could be used.
Some of these include options like:
- Prostaglandins
- Beta-blockers
- Alpha-adrenergic agonists
- Carbonic anhydrase inhibitors
- Rho kinase inhibitors
- Miotic or cholinergic agents
3. Cannabis
At first glance, you may not think about cannabis as a possible treatment option for an eye condition like glaucoma.
After all–marijuana is inhaled and/or ingested—not absorbed through the eyes, right?
However—the truth of the matter is that several clinical studies have indicated that cannabinoids and/or substances found within marijuana can actually help to reduce intraocular pressure–and this can directly contribute to either preventing and/or lessening the damage caused by glaucoma.
One thing to note, however, is that you’ll really want to work on improving your cannabis tolerance if you plan to make good use of cannabis as a possible tool for helping you with your glaucoma.
If you’re not sure how to do that, check out this post on the topic.
You’ll need to make sure that your tolerance level is at least high enough that you won’t totally ‘sink into the couch’ or ‘freak out’ the first time you try to smoke for glaucoma’s sake.
Conclusion
There you have it.
3 options for helping you to prevent and/or treat the damage caused by glaucoma.
Equipped with this knowledge, you can now help yourself by navigating this issue with at least a bit of knowledge—so that you won’t be totally left in the dark about what to do.
You’ve got this!
Good luck.
