“Can glaucoma progression be stopped?”

In some patients it cannot be stopped completely but the progression can be drastically slowed down by reducing your eye pressure.

Yes it can with early aggressive management . The key is to screen patients and catch it early. Every case is different like any disease some people have a mild case and some difficult and more severe requiring more intervention. There are some cases of glaucoma that no matter what you do you may slow progression but it still continues to get worse. These cases are very frustrating. It’s is important to treat the whole patient ie diabetes, medications, cardiovascular disease, smoking can make it worse.

For some patients, we are able to stop glaucoma procession. Other patients have very aggressive glaucoma which progresses in spite of the best efforts of the patient and physician. The goal of pressure lowering drops, laser like SLT, and glaucoma surgery is to slow the rate of glaucoma progression. At age 39, slowing progression as much as possible is key, so make sure you are getting regular monitoring to check for progression and staying regular with taking eye drops. You can also ask your doctor about SLT. Managing glaucoma over your lifetime to preserve vision is reliant on a good patient and physician partnership so make sure you have a doctor who regularly manages glaucoma patients and who you enjoy working with.

Yes, if you are having great control of the eye pressure..