Types of Glaucoma

Video Transcript

"Well, let's talk for a moment about differing styles of Glaucoma. I think, sometimes, people have the misunderstanding that Glaucoma is a one entity. And, there's actually many different types of Glaucoma and, you know, we have congenital Glaucoma, we have Glaucoma that can happen as a result of trauma. But, the majority of population, when we talk about Glaucoma falls in one of two categories. And that's a category called Primary open angle Glaucoma, also known as open angle Glaucoma. Another one called Acute angle closure Glaucoma, or closed angle Glaucoma. Approximately 70% of cases, or so, fall into this open angle Glaucoma category. And that's the category that we find, most common, in our practice. And that's also the type that most commonly affects individuals as they age. Open angle Glaucoma is, occurs when that draining system that we talked about earlier is open. It's wide open, there's plenty of fluid getting in through that duct system, but for some reason the pressure is still high, and so we call that open angle Glaucoma. In closed angle Glaucoma what happens, which closed angle Glaucoma, again, represents a smaller amount of patients. Typically about 10% of Glaucoma patients. In closed angle Glaucoma what happens is that the iris is caught, is pushing backwards and as it pushes backward it is condensing that drain that fluid is pushing through. And so the iris is, essentially, closing down that drain causing a closed angle. And, as a result of that, that can cause the pressure in the eye to spike up. Now, closed angle Glaucoma is one of those rare instances where there's actually symptoms. So, patients that have a closed angle Glaucoma is a very serious problem. Close angle Glaucoma often has symptoms like eye pain, blurry vision, oftentimes seeing halos or rainbows around light, sometimes there's nausea and headaches associated with it. So, close angle Glaucoma is, typically, an emergency and that needs to be treated by an Ophthalmologist who will, typically, treat that surgically. Open angle Glaucoma, again, is the variety that is most common. So, just to recap, there are many styles of Glaucoma. Two large areas of Glaucoma, one is called open angle the other is called closed angle. Most of the population that has Glaucoma has open angled Glaucoma and that represents about 70% of the population. And that style of Glaucoma, unfortunately, typically doesn't show up with symptoms. So that's the style that we want to make sure and catch before patients age and and they cause irreversible damage to their optic nerve that could have been prevented from just routine eye care."