Blogs

Discussions about low blood pressure provoked me to think about atrial fibrilation. It's a condition in which heart sometimes beats too frequently and inefficiently which effects in lowering of the blood pressure. The lowering is so significant that it makes some direct dangers to peoples' lifes. And in many cases it's happening without being diagnosed or even noticed.

This is very interesting. It seems like vitamin D is proving to be important in preventing a number of diseases.

For Women Under 75, Extra Vitamin D Could Ward Off Macular Degeneration 

I thought this might be an interesting article for all.

20 years ago a doctor declared my IOP to be uncontrollable and I would go blind (I had a penetrating injury to my eye). He told me that eventually I would lose my eye. As a 20 year old I baulked at the idea and told him that I wanted to keep my eye even as painful as it was because one day they might be able to restore my sight. His response was,"the day they can restore your vision will be the day that they can product a race of human clones and that is way beyond your lifetime". Hmmm...

We have an excellent phone conferencing provider that we plan on using for phone based interactive meetings.

There are many ways around having to pay long distance charges to our conference call in number:

1) There is a list of  toll free access numbers for some major cities, and they can be found here (sorry, we are not setup for the main toll free 800 number).. http://turbobridge.com/local_toll.html.

• TOPIC: "Dealing with a Glaucoma Diagnosis." I will be the moderator for the first meeting, and this may end up being the first part of a two part topic. This meeting will be a phone conference.
• DATE AND TIME:  8:15 - 9:15 pm EDT (Miami time) Thursday  April 14, 2011. The main part of the meeting is planned for an hour, but for those who wish to hang around, we plan to have an approximate ½ hour informal sharing time afterward.

Effect of Measurement Order Between Right and Left Eyes on Intraocular Pressure Measurement

http://archopht.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/129/3/276

Melike Pekmezci, MD; Sidney T. Chang, MD; Bradley S. Wilson, MA; Mae O. Gordon, PhD; Anjali M. Bhorade, MD, MSCI

Arch Ophthalmol. 2011;129(3):276-281. doi:10.1001/archophthalmol.2011.33

These days I am going very slowly with my glaucoma quest. Lots of other work and stress. Nonetheless I seem to have found what I think is a promising approach. The only one so far where a direct cause and relationship (higher or lower IOP) appears to exist. Here it is in a nutshell:

Ionized calcium and pH is the key I think. First about ionized calcium:

- acidosis increases ionized calcium

- IOP is usually higher in acidosis

- ionized calcium is higher in hypothermia (low body temperature)

Recently we had a discussion on the FitEyes email list about experimenting with glaucoma medications. As part of that discussion, people expressed that they were horrified or fearful. At least one person responded by advocating a prudent stance. I certainly do not disagree with the advice given. In fact, I think everyone who responded to the original post was in agreement that the thing the original questioner contemplated was totally inappropriate for the person's skill level. So that was the end of that discussion, rightly so.

This captures a lot of what glaucoma means to me. Iti captures my experience of the initial bitterness of glaucoma eventually becoming sweet. Glaucoma positively changed me to my core. Glaucoma has enriched my life beyond anything I could ever have imagined. By the way, Joanna Macy is worth reading.

This article is on Dr. Mercola's site this week.  If my link below doesn't work, check his archives for MAR 26, 2011, Issue 1695. The comment on glaucoma caught my eye and I find it very interesting:

Here's part of the article:

Hello, this is time that i am contacting you. I have recently been diagnosed with Glaucoma in my left eye only. This was very puzzling to my eye care specialist. The pressure in my left eye was 31. He prescribed drops (Cumigan and Lumigan) and stated that the problem could not be reversed but could only be slowed down and definitely not cured. Is there a cure?

A Jackson Laboratory research team, working in collaboration with researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, show that RNA granules--key players in messenger RNA (mRNA) processing--can affect eye development, leading to juvenile cataracts in humans and mice.

The research, published in the March 25 issue of Science, also demonstrates the first connection between RNA granules and glaucoma, as the humans and mice in the study developed glaucoma.

i hope david doesn't mind me using his message board like this, but i find it useful to post and think through research i am reading

the primary mechanism of damage is excess glutamate on the optic nerves and also presumably the retinal ganglion

now injury to the nerves inducts the release of glutamate

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2603269/

 Years ago I heard something about being able to gently press on your eye to help "push" the fluid out and lower iop. 

I cant find anything about this online.

Has anyone ever heard this?

 Have had pressure pretty much under control for over 20 yrs with drops.

Lately the pressure has been up some in my only good eye.

Especially at night.  I will use the 3 drops... then if I wake up a few hours laters the IOP is up.

Any tips on keeping it down at night?

I have been sleeping with head elevated... but I tried it both ways and it does not seem to make much of a difference either way.

 Hello, is there a general consensus about what the best glaucoma hospital / center in the country is?  I have one good eye and the pressures are now going up in that one... I am not happy with the specialists here in Alabama and am thinking about looking elsewhere.

I would appreciate any suggestions.

I have congenital glaucoma.  IOP is going up at night.  I can wake up just 4 hours after using 3 drops and see rainbows.
Then after staying up just a few minutes it goes back down....
 

This will probably benefit self tonometry practitioneers the most, but even if you don't have a tonometer, you will have a better understanding of how eye pressures can behave.

An interesting discussion developed on the Fiteyes Google newsgroup concerning modifications to eye drops - BUT which proved to be a good platform to delve into the whole new paradigm of the patient's role in complementing and augmenting care provided by the medical community. I have posted key components here so you can get a good 'gist' (and hopefully join in the discussion)..

From Holly,

 I have a question.  After putting alphagan into my eyes, after a few days my eyes become very red and burning. Eventually I have to stop taking the drops. I want so much to be able to tolerate these drops. I have normal tension glaucoma and these drops help to lower my pressure. What do you think of diluting the drops with water?  Maybe the water would lessen the reaction.  Has anyone ever tried this?

When I first became diagnosed with glaucoma, I checked and double checked everything which the doctor told me. I also read every article on glaucoma which I could find, and tried to calculate and assess the risks in my own particular case. I reached a point where I became obsessed with understanding everything there was to know about 'my disease' (as though understanding alone could result in some sort of curative action).

As time went on, this pursuit caused me to feel like I was looking at the world through 'diseased eyes' and it became more and more frustrating as I realized that from an empirical perspective alone, there was simply no way to ever understand glaucoma (and anyone who says they do is probably delusional). It wasn't until I familiarized myself with Dave's perspective of focusing on health and letting doctors worry about my condition, that I began to interrupt this negative cycle.