2 Procedures Your Doctor Might Recommend If You Have Glaucoma

If you have been told that you have glaucoma in your eyes, that can be a stressful thing to deal with. You might be vaguely aware that you will need some surgery in order to decrease the pressure in your eye from all the fluid buildup that is making it difficult for you to see, but you might not know anything other than that. Here are some surgical procedures that your eye doctor might recommend to you.

Cycloablation

Cycloablation, commonly referred to as laser surgery, is generally painless and is a non-invasive procedure that does not require any cutting into your eye. What happens is that a laser destroys some of the part of your eye that is causing the extra fluid in your eye in the first place.

The ciliary body in your eye is responsible for producing the fluid, called aqueous humor, that is supposed to regulate the amount of pressure in your eyeball. Because glaucoma indicates some problem with aqueous humor, destroying part of the ciliary body can decrease the amount of aqueous humor and therefore reduce pressure.

During cycloablation, a laser is used to directly target the ciliary body. This process can be expensive and you might still need to continue taking eye drops to continue to cut down on pressure inside your eye. The reason you need to keep taking medication is that the ciliary body cannot be completely destroyed, because your eye does need some fluid. Not only that, but the ciliary body also has the ciliary muscle, an essential part that helps your eye to focus on different things.

Eye Stent

Another procedure that your doctor might recommend for you is the placement of an eye stent into your eye. This procedure requires that an incision be made into your eye. A tube, or stent, is then placed into your eye so that excess aqueous humor will drain into the veins of your eye. The stent that is inserted is quite small, some 20,000 times smaller than the lens used in many cataract procedures. Some stents are roughly the size of one eyelash.

When the stent is in place, your eye should drain regularly, and you are unlikely to continue to need additional medication in the future. However, if there are some problems with the veins in your eye, you might not be eligible for this procedure.

Now that you know a little more about what kind of surgery you may have in order to treat your glaucoma, talk to your eye doctor about which procedure makes the most sense for your eyes. You may soon experience better vision again. For more information about eye stents, check out the site here.