Treatments and drugs

The damage caused by glaucoma can't be reversed. But treatment and regular checkups can help slow or prevent vision loss, especially in you catch the disease in its early stage.

The goal of glaucoma treatment is to lower pressure in your eye (intraocular pressure). Depending on your situation, your options may include eyedrops, laser treatment or surgery.

Eyedrops

Glaucoma treatment often starts with prescription eyedrops. These can help decrease eye pressure by improving how fluid drains from your eye or by decreasing the amount of fluid your eye makes.

Oral medications

If eyedrops alone don't bring your eye pressure down to the desired level, your doctor may also prescribe an oral medication, usually a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor. Possible side effects include frequent urination, tingling in the fingers and toes, depression, stomach upset, and kidney stones.

Surgery and other therapies

Other treatment options include laser therapy and various surgical procedures. Possible complications include pain, redness, infection, inflammation, bleeding, abnormally high or low eye pressure, and loss of vision. Some types of eye surgery may speed the development of cataracts.

You'll need to see your doctor for follow-up exams. And you may eventually need to undergo additional procedures if your eye pressure begins to rise or other changes occur in your eye.

The following techniques are intended to improve the drainage of fluid within the eye, lowering pressure:

Laser therapy. Laser trabeculoplasty (truh-BEK-u-low-plas-tee) is an option for people with open-angle glaucoma. It's done in your doctor's office. He or she uses a laser beam to open clogged channels in the trabecular meshwork. It may take a few weeks before the full effect of this procedure becomes apparent.

Filtering surgery. With a surgical procedure called a trabeculectomy (truh-bek-u-LEK-tuh-me), your surgeon creates an opening in the white of the eye (sclera) and removes part of the trabecular meshwork.

Drainage tubes. In this procedure, your eye surgeon inserts a small tube in your eye.

Electrocautery. Your doctor may suggest a minimally invasive procedure to remove tissue from the trabecular meshwork using a small electrocautery device called a Trabecutome.

Treating acute angle-closure glaucoma

Acute angle-closure glaucoma is a medical emergency. If you're diagnosed with this condition, you'll need urgent treatment to reduce the pressure in your eye. This generally will require both medication and laser or other surgical procedures.

You may have a procedure called a laser peripheral iridotomy in which the doctor creates a small hole in your iris using a laser. This allows fluid (aqueous humor) to flow through it, relieving eye pressure.

Emerging therapies

Researchers are evaluating the effectiveness of new drugs, drug delivery methods, surgical procedures and devices (iStent, others).