air puff

I went to the eye doctor for a check up last week. Well before I went I drank two cups of coffee on a empty stomach, and the night before was up all night feeding my newborn. Anyway I went to the doctor and he said my eye pressure was 26 in the left and 21 in the right. He check my optic nerve and said it was fine. After I left the doctor I stopped drinking caffeine and also started taking a multi vit for eyes and began a weight loss plan. Well three days later I went to get new Pres Glasses, and the guy at the shop checked my eye pressure, it was 17 on the left and 18 on the right. I thought it was a mistake so when i picked up me glasses i had him checked again, they were 13 in the left and 14 in the right.

I'd like to share my thoughts and experiences with you. I believe that monitoring my eye pressure closely has been invaluable for me. I also monitor a lot of other things, but intraocular pressure is still considered the most important risk factor in glaucoma. And I believe intraocular pressure is misunderstood. Therefore, we, the community of glaucoma patients, have two important opportunities in regard to monitoring our intraocular pressure right now. 

• First, we can improve the management of our own glaucoma and give ourselves better odds for maintaining good vision. On this blog I discuss many examples of how monitoring my own eye pressure closely has helped with the management of my glaucoma. This has been a good thing for me, so I'm enthusiastic about sharing my experiences. In fact, my experiences with monitoring my own eye pressure led me to get involved in intraocular pressure research and I am now collaborating with one of the most respected scientists in this field.
• Second, by doing closer monitoring of our eye pressure and then sharing that data, we might be paving the way to insights that benefit many other glaucoma patients. One example is the discussion about how Weight Lifting Lowers My Eye Pressure and another is my Postural Changes and Eye Pressure. The best example may be the connection between stress and intraocular pressure. Those of us who are doing high-frequency intraocular pressure monitoring in conjunction with the research projects FitEyes.com is promoting are helping advance medicine's understanding of eye pressure.

I believe that, when used skillfully, the air puff tonometer can be very accurate in a wide variety of conditions. It is a powerful instrument for self-tonometry. Naturally, I had something to say when I saw a message where someone wrote the following:

The air-puff [tonometer] is not very accurate at all.

I suggested they see this previous article on tonometers. In this current article, I will elaborate on my tonometer experiences.