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Hello - I feel as though I have been tossed in the middle of the ocean and been told I better learn to swim! I've been a glaucoma suspect for 15 or 20 years. I'm now a "strong" suspect and have some damage in both eyes. My pressure is now 21 and 22. From what the doctor has said, I won't be surprised if he puts me on drops next time.
I'm now going in for pressure readings every 3 months.
As a user of tonometry are you aware of your IOP before you do the tonometer. That is, can you feel what your IOP is likely to be before you check the pressure based on your activity before checking or your mood or emotional state?
I ask this since some people have said that they sense when their IOP is higher than usual ie., they feel the pressure. Do you feel or sense the pressure and if so has the tonometer coincided with what you think your IOP might be?
Thanks
A
My drops were stopped when my pressure was 18 every 6 months. My pressure then went up and I kept asking to go back on drops but I was told there is no damage to my optic nerve. When the pressure reached 30 they said so sorry you now have optic nerve damage. And I have been bombarded with drops and my pressure got down to 14. After a while it went back up to 24 and I showed a bit more optic nerve damage. A trabulectomy was given as only option. My sight was 20 20 vision. To keep it I agreed to the operation. The operation has left me blind in that eye and in awful pain.
Can eye pressure change daily? Does it change every day?
surely its perfectly normal for eye pressure to go up under certain circumstances. Just like our bp goes up and down. anne
We now know that intraocular pressure does respond to events in our lives, to our state of mind and emotions and to stress. However, before FitEyes came along in 2006 (and for several years afterwards) these facts were not recognized.
See this FitEyes article from Feb 2007:
http://fiteyes.com/Does-Stress-Increase-Eye-Pressure-For-Everyone
The standard medical opinion is that stress does not affect eye pressure (intraocular pressure). For example, see "Glaucoma - Frequently Asked Questions" at The Eye Institute states:
"As far as we know, stress does not affect eye pressure or the health of the optic nerve."
Another example of the prevailing medical opinion can be found in a Wills Glaucoma chat transcript on Stress and Glaucoma from July 20, 2005:
Patient: Does being nervous or stressed increase the IOP (intraocular pressure) as it does blood pressure?
Dr. Elliot Werner: Not as far as we know.
Even today many ophthalmologists will deny that stress affects intraocular pressure. They will further deny that non-stressful events such as Bailey described could affect eye pressure.
I learned about emotions and eye pressure, in part, by watching my favorite sports and measuring my eye pressure over a period of years. See Watching Tour de France Raises IOP.
Here is what I discovered after monitoring my eye pressure before, during and after watching sports over a period of several years.
I need some way of measuring my nocturnal pressures. My daytime measurements are reasonably low most of the time, and relatively consistent. I want to start adjusting my medications (formulations, frequency, timing), but don't feel confident in doing this until I can take night time measurements.
I know this is a concern for just about everyone who has glaucoma. I'm surprised there isn't more discussion on FitEyes about how to take night time measurements, and how to interpret the data (I'm pretty sure I've read all that's there).
hi my names robert, im from the uk, im 27 years old and have lived with ocd since i was about 14 years old. For some months i had been dealing with chronic hyperventilation which stressed me badly to the point where i felt that i could have had a break down due to the stress and took medication such as prozac, diazepam (only when i needed it) and went to a physiotherapist to help get my breathing back to normal.
I'd like to ask everyone with a tonometer and good eye pressure data to contribute comments to this post. What factors have we identified that affect eye pressure? I'm going to start the list informally with things that come off the top of my head. I'll revise and refine this list based on feedback from people with tonometers and good data. Thank you!
Reduces Eye Pressure
In any tonometer (based on today's technology), you can have some, but not all of, the following:
People tend to give a priority to portability and low cost. New products aimed at this feature set have recently been announced. Does it make sense to utilize those devices for self-tonometry?
We have to agree that any trade off that doesn't include reliability and validity of IOP data invalidates the whole endeavor of self-tonometry. Not only is it meaningless to do it if the data is not of sufficient quality upon which to make important decisions, but it could actually be detrimental to do self-tonometry in that case.
With today's technologies, portability entails user-alignment (in the context of self-tonometry). Proper user-alignment to produce a valid measurement, by definition, depends upon user skill as well as various specific conditions of each measurement. User-alignment, regardless of the tonometer, is difficult! (User-alignment is defined as the operator of the tonometer having to align the tonometer with the eye manually. Alignment is a very precise process requiring a steady hand, good eyesight, training and practice.)
Therefore, the requirement of user-alignment conflicts with the requirement of reliability and validity of IOP data. We cannot guarantee reliability and validity of IOP data when variable user skills are required to produce that data.
If any decent ophthalmologist or scientist (or intelligent thinker) considers a set of IOP data, they must consider how the data was obtained. If patient skill played a critical role in producing that data, as it does when user-alignment is required, the clear thinking person will immediately discount that data. Therefore, the self-tonometrist's efforts may not produce much of value.
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