intraocular pressure

If you have been reading FitEyes.com, you already know we have documented, through thousands of intraocular pressure measurements in real life situations, that stress can raise eye pressure in glaucoma patients. I just came across this abstract of an older study done in Japan that is of interest in this regard.

Purpose. To test whether encagement and volume load as stressors influence the intraocular pressure in rabbits.

Question: Does reading a computer monitor for an hour and feeling eye strain raise your IOP?

My Answer: The question of computer use and intraocular pressure is a common topic. Many people report that using the computer (even for several hours) for relaxing activities does not raise intraocular pressure. I have found this to be true for myself as well.

However, when a feeling of eye strain or psychological stress is involved, it is a different issue in my opinion.

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.