stress

This is my plan for overcoming glaucoma: embrace, evolve and exceed.

I had to start embracing my glaucoma because to do otherwise implied aversion. Aversion is defined as "antipathy: a feeling of intense dislike." Obviously, we resist that which we dislike. And that which we resist persists - this is a law of health. This law is the basis for the radical acceptance paradox: radical acceptance is the first step toward change.

If you are continuing to experience deterioration of your optic nerve in spite of having low eye pressure (such as normal tension glaucoma - also called low tension glaucoma), you may find this information very interesting. In fact, I think all glaucoma patients who have any progressing optic nerve damage should have their eye pressure monitored during the night (ideally while they sleep at home in familiar surroundings).

A little more than 60 days ago, I wrote a blog post and asked, "Does Stress Increase My Eye Pressure?" At that time I looked back and noted that my intraocular pressure had increased as my business situation had gotten more stressful. Since then, we have collected a lot more data. I think it will prove interesting to compare two similar days and see what we can learn about stress and eye pressure given the additional data.

 Today was not a typical day! For one thing, we took 200 IOP measurements today! For another thing, my IOP values were not well controlled. It was like my emotions were directly connected to my IOP today, and my emotions were varied. Consequently, today's data shows a large range from the maximum value to the minimum value. That range is 16.7, way above yesterday's value of 11 (which itself was above previous values of 9-10).