Get Your Eyes Tested!

[Jim_P_Pulfrew]

If you haven’t been for a while please go and get your eyes tested at an Opticians, and if like me you are over 40, insist on the bit which measures your eyeball internal pressure. It is a tiny bit of discomfort as they blast of air straight into your eye and is a bloody nuisance, because if you blink too fast they have to keep doing it until they get a reading - but insist and persist you must.

I have just been diagnosed with Glaucoma. It was discovered at a routine eye test though thankfully in the very early stages. However, I have lost nearly 2% of my field of vision in one eye due to the high pressure damaging my optic nerve. I was surprised as I expected a blank patch, but your brain compensates very well until it is too late and you are practically blind. The blindness is not reversible. They call it the Silent Sight Thief because without IOP testing you will not know how blind you have become until it is too late.

Contrary to popular belief, high eyeball pressure has absolutely nothing to do with blood pressure. My BP is in the normal range and always has been but my left eye pressure is high.

I will have to do eye drops daily for the rest of my life, but that is an absolutely miniscule price to pay for the ability to see my kids and grandkids grow up.

So please, please, please if you haven’t been tested recently, go and book the test. Serving and ex-service people are probably the worse demographic in the country for not wanting to make a fuss, and putting things that don’t properly hurt to the backs of our minds. I was a prime culprit of the ‘just get on with it’ culture. But this has given me a kick in the seat and I am just want to spread the word, as I am one of the lucky ones.

Jimps

 

[needsabiggerfuse]

Absolutely bang on. Glaucoma can, in some circumstances, be passed on by parents to their offspring (thanks Dad 'Fuse). But if there is a history of glaucoma in your family, you get your 2-year NHS eye test free of charge. Tell your optician and they will raise the necessary paperwork; don't fib 'cos the NHS will check their records. The only bit I actually pay for is the retinal photograph which is examined to see if there have been any changes since the previous shot, e.g. capilliaries getting nipped off. This can be the indicitive of a pressure change within the eyeball. Fortunately, I don't have to follow the eye drop regime yet, but the complaint is treatable if spotted in the early stages.

Oh yes, I just remembered. Glaucoma can be caused by a physical force. A rugby playing colleague who took a bang on the head developed it.

And, it can result from disease of the eye too. In fact anything that alters the eye socket or the eye itself can result in glaucoma.

Ignore it at your peril.

 

[Teh Wal]

And it's free in Scotland too so there's no excuse not to get 'em done really DT_Xtremez_19:

 

[CC]

And I'm sure you are entitled to a free eye test on the RAF, once every two years. Just confirm with your friendly medics. I've just had mine done and claimed it back on jpa.

 

[Realist78]

I don't know about other opticians but at Specsavers that test is carried out routinely as part of the eye test anyway.

 

[Ex-Bay]

My optician told me, during one of my more recent eye tests, that Glaucoma is actually a whol family of eye problems (the 1st edition of the book was called "Glaucoma". The Second edition, much larger, had the same title. The third edition was called "Glaucoma and deseases of the eye")

Well said Jimps; absolutely bang on.

 

[rest have risen above me]

I didn't see this one coming.

I'll get my coatDT_Xtremez_42: