How about a big IOP surprise for your birthday?

My wife gave me the new pair of Oakley prescription eyeglass frames I wanted for my birthday. It seemed like a small inconvenience that Oakley required me to obtain a new prescription before I could actually get my glasses. My existing prescription was about two years old, but it was obvious to me that my vision had not changed one bit. I was seeing 20/20, or better, with the current prescription and I was sure it was fine.

However, during my eye exam, the doctor of optometry warned me that my intraocular pressure was at the very upper limit of the normal range. I was very surprised, but I suspected the measurement was an anomaly. I was also a bit miffed that the doctor was making such a big deal out of it. I maintained a health and fitness routine on a par with professional athletes, and I was sure that I couldn't be so unhealthy as to have a disease. I also didn't have time to be bothered with distractions. I had million-dollar deals to close at work and a new datamining research project to push forward.

As fate would have it, I had to return to this doctor's office a few weeks later because he had made a mistake in my new prescription. And this meant that I had to send my new Oakley glasses back to have the lenses changed. I certainly wasn't happy about that. My old prescription was perfect (and dammit, I told him so!) and it seemed that this doctor had simply wasted my time and caused me to be deprived of my new birthday glasses for many more weeks. [UPDATE: does anyone notice any arrogance, frustration or impatience here?]

However, during this return visit, he advised me that my IOP was now even higher. It had moved slightly above the normal range. The doctor (correctly!) advised me to see a glaucoma specialist.

I had a hard time accepting the facts about my IOP. But I had an even harder time with the idea that my elevated IOP required allopathic medical treatment. In the past, if anything about my health was not optimal, I had always made adjustments and gotten immediate results. For example, my cholesterol was once moderately elevated. By the next checkup, it was in the 150's and it has stayed there ever since. I respect mainstream medical care for accidents or acute issues, which are areas where this system has no equal. But for chronic conditions, there are a range of options that should be considered. Often, the solution to a chronic health problem has a lot to do with lifestyle (eating, exercise, stress, etc.). Simply taking an allopathic medicine to alleviate certain symptoms is not my idea of an ideal approach.

The common form of glaucoma (chronic open angle glaucoma) is a chronic condition. However, I do not yet know whether lifestyle factors may play the same central role in glaucoma that they do in heart disease or diabetes. Heck, I don't even know if I have glaucoma yet, and I want to believe that I don't! For now, I plan to fight my elevated IOP the same way I have tackled any other health issue I have faced. I have already started researching intraocular pressure. I have decided to try various nutritional supplements -- and I am completely confident that I will find a "natural" solution for my elevated IOP within a few weeks. [UPDATE: Ha! The idea of quickly finding a simple solution was completely unrealistic!]

The kind doctor of optometry has agreed to let me come in every couple days to have my IOP checked on his non-contact tonometer (NCT). [As this blog shows, my agreement with this doctor marks the beginning of my quantitative research into my own IOP.]