Back on glaucoma drops :(

Had a early morning appointment with my opthalmologist - pressures were 30 in right and 24 in left. So he put me back on glaucoma drops :(. On top of that I've got pressure at work. 

Anyways I am not giving up - I read this amazing book over the weekend - The Brain that changes itself -- where there is this amazing story about a Russian doctor - and his lines are -- WE SEE WITH OUR MIND AND BRAIN AND NOT WITH OUR EYES.. Wasn't exactly the same this said by Dr Bates over a 100 years ago? Enough talk.. back to practicing Bates method - which is not doing eye exercises but conditioning the mind so that the brain is capable of seeing again. 

Visual Field Test result

Got the visual field test done yesterday - the whole process went pretty well. The machine uses was SITA SWAP - where yellow background with blue dots is used. This is supposed to detect optic nerve changes much earlier than other machines .. The result was normal for both eyes. 

Next appointment with my opthalmologist is next tuesday (03/24). 

Visual Field Test tomorrow

Have a visual field test tomorrow in the morning. This is the first time I am getting it done since I changed doctors. The doctor informed me that this will be a bit different than my previous VFT's - it will be yellow dots on a blue background. Will blog tomorrow once I get that done.. 

Eye pain relieved with eye movement

I work as a software engineer.. so due to the eye strain, quite a lot of times there is pain when I move my eyes. 

It seems like looking/staring kind of stops the eye movement.. at least in my case.  When this happens I also noticed that my eyes feel hard - so can it be that the pressure increases if the eyes do not move? I surely think so. So the best way to get rid of the pain is to move the eyes a lot.. in all directions.. try to trace any object, letter, numbers, anything .. I did this for around 30 minutes yesterday and my eyes felt a whole lot better last night as well as today in the morning. They felt softer too. Will remember to do this whenever this happens again. 

Off my Glaucoma Drops :)

Something awesome happened!!! I changed my doctors - and I see a new Glaucoma specialist. 

My first appointment with him was on 3rd Feb 2009. Pressure was 22 in both eyes. 

He looked at my reports and said that he thought I had inflammatory glaucoma - the kind where someone's pressure can rise high because of imflammation in the eyes. So he said that he needs to treat the inflammation and asked me to see him in 2 weeks and to stop.. yes STOP taking the damned glaucoma drops 1 week proir to this. Awesome.. He also did a HRT eye test and my eyes look the same they did last year - so no change in that. He also said that looking at HRT report and the condition of my eyes, people like me can go on for years without taking any drops !!!! 

This is awesome news. I was a bit skeptical at first but I decided to take the risk. I stopped my drops on 10th Feb 2009. My eyes did feel a bit heavy at time.. but what the hell. Whenever I got that feeling I did long swing which helps me immensely. 

So I had another early morning (9.00 am) appoitment with him yesterday - 17th Feb 2009. The pressure's were 20 and 22 - which is the same as with drops :) My eyes were feeling awesome yesterday. He seemed pretty happy with what he saw and has asked me to see him in 1 month. 

He also prescribed an anti-inflammatory eye drop - Xibrom - which is non-steroidal. 

I will also be doing a visual field test in the next month - and meet the doctor after this. 

I am so excited by all this!!!! This is the best thing that has happened to me after a long time. 

My B'Day was on 8th Feb.. has GOD given me this awesome gift?? The Gift of Vision? I surely hope so. 

Another appointment with my optometerist

Had another appointment with my optometerist on Sat - 1/30/2009. This time the eye pressure was 18/18 same in both eyes. The measurement was done in the evening around 5.00 o'clock. 

My optometerist gave me some good peice of info - With a lot of closework, the eye compensates by tilting blood vessels towards the nasal side. Which is why my optic nerves look kind of funny - normal optic nerves have blood vessels passing in the center. So if I start using my peripheral vision, will the network of blood vessels shift towards the center? How do I use my peripheral vision? 

* Dont do close work (I dont know if this is possible)

* Doing various bates exercises - specially long swing - which seems to make one us pay attention to our periperal vision. 

I haven't been blogging that much but rest assured have been doing my eye exercises. If I dont do these for some time, my eye sight starts deteriorating. 

* Long swing (115) 

* Shoulder exercises

* Sway before eye chart

* Fine print reading