What’s The Most Common Age For Developing Glaucoma?

Do you think that it is okay to skip your eye exam? Do you ever think that because your vision is clear that your eyes are healthy?

With age, it’s easy to think you’re invincible, especially when you’re younger. You may think that health conditions won’t impact you until you get older.

But that isn’t always the case! This applies to all health conditions, including eye conditions. Keep reading to learn more about the most common age for developing glaucoma!

What is glaucoma?

Glaucoma is an eye condition that affects the optic nerve. It’s actually more than one eye condition as it’s part of a family of eye conditions that damage the optic nerve.

To have good vision, your optic nerve needs to be healthy. Patients with glaucoma experience increased eye pressure. When eye pressure increases, this damages the optic nerve and leads to vision loss.

What’s the most common age for developing glaucoma?

You are most at risk for developing glaucoma if you are 40 years old or older. But that’s not to say that this is the only time you can develop glaucoma.

Like any other health condition, anyone can develop glaucoma. There are types of glaucoma that you can have from birth, as well as types that develop during childhood or later on.

What should I know about glaucoma?

While health conditions have well-known symptoms and side effects, glaucoma can sneak up on you. You need to see an eye doctor to be diagnosed with glaucoma because it has very few symptoms to watch out for.

People of all ages need to be worried about developing glaucoma. The only way to diagnose glaucoma and keep an eye on your eye health is to go to your eye doctor.

You may not even notice the vision changes glaucoma is causing until you see your eye doctor. Glaucoma can cause small changes, but eventually, it can cause severe ones.

Once glaucoma has impacted your vision, it’s irreversible. Getting frequent eye exams is the only way to identify and diagnose glaucoma.

During your eye exam, your eye doctor will measure your eye pressure. This way they can have a baseline and detect any changes if your eye pressure increases.

Having this information makes it easier for them to diagnose glaucoma because it affects eye pressure. Diagnosing glaucoma early can lead to the prevention of further vision loss.

What are the symptoms associated with glaucoma?

The symptoms of glaucoma depend on the type and stage of glaucoma that you have. The most common kinds of glaucoma include:

Open-angle Glaucoma

Patients with open-angle glaucoma can experience tunnel vision as it develops. You may also develop blind spots in your peripheral and central vision. Open-angle glaucoma affects both eyes.

Acute-angle Glaucoma

Patients with this type of glaucoma can experience strong headaches, eye pain, vomiting and nausea, cloudy vision, red eyes, and seeing halos around lights.

If you have any of these signs and symptoms, please contact your eye doctor immediately to schedule an appointment. Leaving glaucoma untreated can result in permanent blindness.

Do you think that you might have glaucoma? The only way to know is by scheduling an eye exam. Schedule yours at Mid Ohio Eye in Columbus, OH today!