What Does Glaucoma Feel Like?

Glaucoma is a condition that causes damage to the optic nerve, eventually leading to vision loss and even blindness.

In fact, glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness and affects more than 80 million people worldwide.

Unfortunately, many don’t recognize the symptoms of glaucoma until after significant loss of vision has already occurred. While glaucoma has no cure, proper treatment can slow it down and help patients maintain their vision. In this post, we’ll explore what glaucoma feels like and how a person with glaucoma sees differently as the condition progresses.

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What Causes Glaucoma?

Glaucoma is caused when fluid builds up in the front of the eye until it damages the optic nerve.

Your eyes constantly produce a special fluid which supplies nutrients before being drained into the body. Glaucoma occurs when the drainage tunnels responsible for removing fluid from the eye become narrowed or blocked.

How Do Your Eyes Feel When You Have Glaucoma?

Glaucoma may be caused by pressure building up in the eye, but patients rarely actually feel this pressure.

The major exception is angle-closure glaucoma, which is considered a medical emergency requiring immediate treatment. Angle-closure glaucoma is often associated with sudden intense eye pain, nausea, and without proper treatment, it can progress to blindness within as little as a day.

So, if you don’t feel it in your eyes — what does glaucoma feel like? Because many forms of glaucoma have no warning signs, glaucoma rarely feels like anything. Many patients do not notice the impact on their vision until the condition is in its later stages.

What Does Vision With Glaucoma Look Like?

For most forms of glaucoma, vision loss will occur slowly over time. Patients in the early stages of glaucoma may begin to notice blind spots in their peripheral vision, followed by blurred vision and seeing rainbow-colored rings or halos around lights.

As glaucoma progresses it often leads to the total loss of peripheral vision, commonly referred to as tunnel vision, which causes a gradual narrowing of a patient’s field of vision.

National Eye Institute and National Institutes of Health

If left untreated, glaucoma will eventually lead to complete loss of vision.

What Does Glaucoma Look Like in the Eye?

For most types of glaucoma, patients will be unable to notice changes to how their eyes look.

However, adults experiencing angle-closure glaucoma will observe the clear cornea of their eye become hazy and the colored iris will bulge and swell. And children born with congenital glaucoma often have a cloudy or hazy cornea, swollen eyes, or eyes that will constantly tear up.

Who’s at Risk for Glaucoma?

Glaucoma can happen at any age, but is most common in older adults and is one of the leading causes of blindness for people over the age of 60.

Other high-risk groups include diabetics, the very nearsighted, and anyone with a family history of glaucoma. Latinos, African Americans, and people with Japanese ancestry are also far more likely to develop glaucoma. If you’re part of one of these at-risk groups, the CDC recommends having a dilated eye exam every 2 years, starting at age 40. Due to their increased risk, diabetics should seek an annual exam.

Is Glaucoma Treatable?

Most glaucoma can be managed with medication, some of which are as simple as taking eye drops. When medications aren’t working or the glaucoma is severe, doctors use a procedure called selective laser trabeculoplasty to open up an eye’s drainage. Where lasers can’t be used or are ineffective, surgery can help create drainage by removing a piece of tissue from the eye or installing a mini-shunt about the size of a grain of rice.

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