Glaucoma Specialist Visit: Eye Pressure and Lying down

This is my first blog post and i've never done this before but i thought i would start with what is going on now;

Today i met with my glaucoma specialist and told him a few of the things that have been going on.

1) The Atlas Orthogonal adjustment that eliminated my exercise induced visual field reduction in my right eye. (my right eye has suffered the most nerve damage)

2) The sleep study where i was diagnosed with sleep apnea. He expressed his feeling that sleep apnea was very bad for the optic nerve. He felt that a cpap machine was warranted to eliminate sleep apnea even though it may raise eye pressures. I am waiting for my dental appliance first. a higher pillow has seemed to help with snoring except when i drink alcohol.

3) My low blood pressure during the sleep study especially when i awoke (pre 98/54 post:80/58). He explained that the difference between eye pressure and blood pressure is called perfusion pressure and that seems to have an impact on glaucoma. The lower the blood pressure and the higher the eye pressure the harder it is to get blood into the eye. I said (after having read Dave's stuff on here) that eye pressure goes up when you sleep. He said how do you know that and proceeded to drop my chair into a supine (lying) position and let me rest there for 5 minutes, wheeled in a machine and took my eye pressure with a medtronic machine while i was in the supine position. then he let me rest sitting in the chair for 10 minutes before taking the pressure with the medtronic machine again. Here's what happened:

Goldman: 17, 17; Lying down 5 minutes Medtronic: 28, 29; Sitting Up Medtronic: 22 23; Goldman: 18 19. So the goldman seemed to read 3 points lower than the medtronic but that was a pretty large increase in 5 min of lying down.

I may adjust how i take naps:) might have to sit up for those. exercise before naps.

Anyway i guess my feeling for my case is that the damage is happening at night due to the perfusion issue of high eye pressure / low blood pressure, sleep apnea which reduces the available oxygen in the blood and possible blood flow partial occlusion due to the atlas alignment. The importance of the atlas adjustment seems rather high as my left eye has shown very little damage.

so the questions are: how to raise blood pressure: as far as ive figured out salt, ashwaganda, eleuthro, acupuncture have some support. I take these herbs and other neuroprotective ones (turmeric, ginkgo, b12, bilberry) right before i go to bed.

how to lower supine eye pressure: this is a tough one - any suggestions? i have a higher pillow. raise one end of the bed? exercise before bed? The doctor said the azopt and lumigan i am taking are the best meds for controlling nightime pressure. Timolol has given me memory loss side effects and lowers blood pressure and heart rate so its out.

Anyway i have to thank my very busy glaucoma specialist for taking the time to measure my supine IOP!