A Middle-Of-The-Night IOP Exam

Today's IOP values include an interesting exam in the middle of the night (4:15 AM, which is the middle of the night for me). They also include data for 2:36 AM the following morning, when I was awake and working late. I have seen some indication that my IOP can reach the high twenties (or more) in my right eye when laying down or sleeping.

However, this is not always the case. My hypothesis (at the moment) is that stress may affect my IOP at night in the same way it seems to during the day. If I am stressed, that may translate into higher IOP at night while I'm sleeping. The values shown here at 2 AM and 4 AM are not extreme for me. Notice that the IOP values at 9:34 AM are higher while I am awake and sitting up (but working on something that is a little stressful).

One of the things that really seems to affect my IOP is when I wake up during the night and lay in bed thinking about work and all the things I need to finish. This is a hard thing to prove, but a few times I have had my IOP checked as quickly as I can get out of bed. Those measurements have shown reasonable values (below 21). The times when I have stayed laying down and let my mind dwell on work and then gotten up to have my IOP checked, the values have been much higher. The data to support that assumption spans many weeks, so it isn't reflected in the table below. However, I think today's data is in general agreement with that tentative hypothesis.

Today's overall averages are:

Left 16.2; Right 19.0 (differential 2.8)

At bedtime I used 1 drop of Xalatan in my left eye and 1 drop of Timoptic GFS 0.5% in my right eye.