What Causes Glaucoma, And Is There Anything I Can Do To Prevent It?

Aug. 24, 2009— -- Question: What causes glaucoma, and is there anything I can do to prevent it?

Answer: Oftentimes people ask me: You know, is there anything I can do to prevent glaucoma? And the only thing you really can do is make sure you see your eye doctor and that you get a dilated eye exam. And that's when we put drops in your eyes and your pupils get really big and we can actually look at the optic nerve. There we can see how healthy it is, and then if there are any problems then we can do other tests like visual fields, check your peripheral vision. We can also do imaging studies to check the nerve fiber layer, and in general I think its just good to do just some common sense things in terms of exercising and making sure your blood pressure is controlled because that helps the body overall, and essentially it will also help your eyesight.