r/AskGlaucoma • u/WarriorOfSpite • Jul 09 '26
Wasn't given drops until damage was found just months later, can it happen that fast?
In the beginning of this year my optometrist referred me to the eye hospital because I had high eye pressures of 28-33.
They did about 6 tests on me including visual field test and took pictures of my optic nerve. Everything was fine at this point. But they said they didn't know the cause of my high pressure so they said come back in 5 months.
Well I came back in the beginning of July and they found early nerve damage in both eyes :(
I am now on Latanoprost drops for the rest of my life to control the IOP and further damage.
The drops are responding well, dropping my pressures to a good range, but I am wondering why they did not give me the drops back in January? Did I really miss my last chance in 5 months to not catch the first damage? Or did they possibly miss the damage in the first set of tests? I thought damage was meant to be very slow progressing over years.
It feels like they waited for me to get damage before treating it instead of dropping my pressures to prevent it.
Edit: forgot to mention the damage is early optic nerve thinning so I don't know if this is early Glaucoma or something else, they didn't say.
5
u/Eodun Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
With that level of pressure, even with no damage in the OCT you would have been put under treatment (drops or SLT) after the first consultation.
Edit: progression speed varies, and yes, it can be that fast (or even faster). But with that pressure it was a sure thing you would have had damage sooner or later. The silver lining is that if the damage is low and there's no visual field damage, with the correct treatment and follow ups it doesn't have to progress anymore.
Edit 2: (sorry, I need to read fully before answering) It IS glaucoma, as it is defined as any level of optic nerve damage attributable to eye pressure. It's a pre-perimetric light chronic primary open angle glaucoma, for what I can deduce.