EP #18: Decoding Secondary Glaucoma: Insights and Prevention During Awareness Month

Unlock the mysteries of secondary glaucoma with us, your hosts Dr. Thuy Nguyen and Jeremy Wolf, as we venture into the intricate world of eye health during Glaucoma Awareness Month. This episode is a must-hear for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of this sight-threatening condition and the critical importance of early detection.

Through our engaging discussion, you'll learn about the nuances of neovascular glaucoma, particularly prevalent among diabetics, and how long-term use of steroid eye drops can have unintended consequences on your vision. We also tackle inflammatory glaucoma, unveiling its connections to autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and Graves' disease. This informative session is designed to equip you with knowledge to safeguard your vision and illuminate why those 'eye puff tests' at the optometrist are much more than a mere inconvenience. Join us to become well-versed in the subtleties of secondary glaucoma and proactive about your eye health.

For more information visit: JazzyEyes.com

or contact: (954) 473-0100

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the Jazzy Eyes podcast. Taking care of your vision with expert precision. Here's your host, dr Tui Nguyen.

Jeremy: 0:14

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Jazzy Eyes podcast. Jeremy Wolf, here joined by your host, dr Tui Nguyen, dr Nguyen, so good to see you again. Hope you had a wonderful day ready for a prosperous and exciting 2024. So this is national. I keep saying national. It's not national, it's Glockoma Awareness Month.

Dr. Nguyen: 0:39

Yes.

Jeremy: 0:40

And Dr Falco just did a couple of segments to kind of give her feedback and her, you know, educational tidbits, if you will. We wanted to get your side of the story here. Why don't you talk a little bit about what you wanted to talk about in terms of Glockoma, and then we shall proceed from here.

Dr. Nguyen: 1:03

So Dr Falco talked about primary, open-angle Glockoma. I'm going to be talking about more, about secondary Glockoma, which are like medical conditions that causes Glockoma, and so these medical conditions block or damages the draining pathways that fluid normally drains through in the eyes, increasing eye pressure and then causing Glockoma and vision loss. When there's fluid in the eye that's being produced and the draining pathways are blocked and fluid can't drain out, the pressures naturally increase. When the pressure increases we worry about any damages that the pressure can do to the optic nerve, which is irreversible. Once the optic nerve is irreversibly damaged, there is vision loss, specifically vision loss that starts in the periphery.

Dr. Nguyen: 1:56

And so a few types of the secondary Glockoma includes neovascular Glockoma, which is a type of Glockoma that some diabetics have. In diabetes there are abnormal blood vessels that grow inside the eyes. These blood vessels, they kind of grow like vines, so they encroach the structure inside the eyes that drain fluid like little pores. It blocks these pores and so now fluid can't drain through these pores, leading to build up of fluids, pressure and eventual Glockomas in these diabetics. Very serious.

Jeremy: 2:32

So interesting and fascinating to go over this. Like I keep saying, it's a lot of information to process. The hope here is that some of the topics that we're talking about end up in front of people that are experiencing these specific issues or, at the very least, raise awareness to these types of things and get people to make sure that they go for the routine checkups, because, dr Falco said, all of this stuff is so much easier to contain when you can, early on, and if you wait too long, like you said, there's damage that is irreversible.

Dr. Nguyen: 3:07

Yeah, and that's why in every exam that we perform, there's always people like oh, you're not going to do the eye puff test on me, or like that's one of the ways that they treat the diploma, that's one of the ways they take pressures. We don't do the eye pop of the air. You do the blue light radiation right Not radiation, the blue light, yeah, and you've had it done on you recently, so you know what I'm talking about it was nice.

Jeremy: 3:30

It was a lot better than the puff. I don't mind any of that stuff, I don't mind any of that stuff.

Dr. Nguyen: 3:38

I don't mind any of that stuff. So there are other types of secondary glaucoma too. There are, like other glaucomas, that are induced by steroid drops. So some people who are on steroid eye drops for a long amount of time, sometimes when the steroids, you know they get into the eye, they penetrate, they do what they're supposed to do, but the molecules of the steroids are too large to pass through the pores of the draining system as well and again it blocks the pores. Fluid can't drain.

Dr. Nguyen: 4:06

Secondary glaucoma A lot of these secondary glaucoma is just things being built up in the drainage system that blocks the pores. That leads to increased pressure in the eye because fluid can't drain. Similarly like there's inflammatory glaucoma, where some people with inflammatory conditions like autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or Riasis or Graves disease, whenever they have these inflammatory eye diseases and there are inflammatory cells, these cells are also too large to pass through the pores and so after years of these inflammatory flares they're at a higher risk for glaucoma and developing glaucoma. Even you know. There's traumatic glaucoma where if you've ever gone a ball straight to the eye, a fist straight into the eye, there could be direct damage to the draining systems of the eye and leading to traumatic glaucoma.

Jeremy: 5:04

You wanted to talk about another topic related to this. Let's wrap this up here and then pick up in another segment and finalize our discussion on glaucoma. Sound good? Yes, all right, thank you everyone for tuning in and we will see you shortly.

Speaker 1: 5:25

Thank you for listening to the Jazzy Eyes podcast. For more information, visit JazzyEyescom or contact 954-473-0100.