Did you know there is a way to check your eye pressure at home? Please click the link to Xala Health http://www.xalahealth.com to find out more about renting or buying the I-Care Home 2 self tonometry device.
What is Glaucoma?
Glaucoma is a group of diseases which share progressive optic nerve damage leading to irreversible blindness over time. Most glaucoma, if detected early enough, can be controlled as the eye pressure is lowered in order to outlive losing sight. Because it does not cause much symptoms until the late stage, it is important to have good follow-up with your doctor with regular testing to prevent vision loss. These tests include fundus imaging, OCT measurements, eye pressure checks, and visual field testing.
How is Glaucoma Treated?
Currently eye pressure is lowered through medications, laser, and procedures, some of which are less effective but safer and others which are more effective but have more risk. Dr. Chang offers all of the many approved ways to lower pressure and will help guide making the best individualized decision using as much available personalized data as possible.
Some of these newer interventional options include the A) hydrus stent, B) OMNI trabeculotomy, C) KDB goniotomy, D) ECP endoscopic laser, E) Xen stent, and F) istent.
About Glaucoma Surgery
Most procedures are outpatient, performed under local sedation anesthesia, and take anywhere from 30 minutes to a little over 1 hour. The recovery can be a few days to weeks or longer depending on the procedure type. The newer interventional options tend to have fast recovery with minimal pain.
Resource Links to learn more about glaucoma
Basics: glaucoma.org
More advanced: https://eyewiki.org/
Office Visit Expectation
Dr. Chang is very thorough with testing and answering questions, and thus visits may take up to one or two hours. Please bring any copies of old records in hand to your visit, if available by requesting them. Also, it is best to communicate via the Stanford MyHealth app, and thus please download this and activate it in the office.
