Alhaja Abike Ojuolape, 65, has been selling provisions at the popular Ladega Market in Ikorodu long before she was diagnosed with glaucoma.

According to her, she thought her problem with the eye disease was age-related because the first sign to her came when she began to bump into the shelves in her shop.

“I felt my eyes were getting old. My mother also went blind at 70, so I thought it was a family thing,” she said.

By the time she went to the General Hospital in Ikorodu, during the Glaucoma Awareness Month, held in March this year, doctors told her she had advanced glaucoma in her right eye and early stage glaucoma in the left.

“They said the right eye could not see again. The left one, I must use drops daily at night for the rest of my life. They warned also that if I miss to apply it one day, the pressure would rise,” she stated.

Though Alhaja Ojuolape still sells her provision at the market, she always advises those that are very close to her, including her customers and people of her age that they shouldn’t wait until they could not see before they go for an eye checkup.

Like Alhaja Ojuolape, 28-year-old Lekan Alabi is a graphic designer at Ketu, Lagos. He said he didn’t feel the need to check his eyes because there were no symptoms.

But he later went for an eye check last month when GoldCrest Family Centre, a Lagos-based non-governmental organisation held its annual free medical outreach.

“They did the eye test and told me my eye pressure was high. I was shocked because I thought I am still young to be experiencing eye pressure.

“Further tests confirmed early-stage open-angle glaucoma and I was happy there is no vision loss yet.

“Doctor said if I had waited five more years, I would have started losing side vision. Now I use one drop at night and I was advised to go for eye check every six months.

“Now, I have learned my lessons that glaucoma does not respect age. If Goldcrest Family Centre did not bring those doctors, I wouldn’t have known until it was too late,” he said.

For years, glaucoma has been one of the major diseases that have continued to threaten eye health. It has left many blinded, while many are still doing everything possible to cope and manage it, even as they continue to tell sad stories of how it has affected their vision and made life unbearable for them.

Glaucoma, according to experts, is a group of eye diseases that damage the optic nerve — the cable that sends images from the eye to the brain.

The damage, findings revealed, is usually caused by high pressure inside the eye called intraocular pressure. It is mostly referred to as the silent thief of sight.

Saturday Sun also gathered that this dreaded eye disease may not give any noticeable sign. However, it is believed that glaucoma could come quietly, and within a short period, without notice, it may have already stolen parts of one’s vision forever.

There are strong indications that in Nigeria today, glaucoma is one of the leading causes of irreversible blindness.

However, most people only hear about it after it is too late. To make things worse, it usually brings no pain, no redness and no warning.

For instance, an individual can see perfectly. But the side vision starts to disappear. It is always like an individual is looking through a tunnel. It also affects the central vision, thus making reading, driving, and recognition of faces very impossible.

Some of the problems associated with glaucoma, according to experts, is that the loss of sight is slow, painless, and permanent if not treated. Unlike cataract or infection, it rarely announces itself.

Experts also agreed that glaucoma is not age-related. As risk increases with age, it was said that glaucoma does not only affect the elderly. Babies can also be born with what is also referred to as congenital glaucoma.

Saturday Sun further gathered that teenagers and people in their 20s and 30s can also develop juvenile glaucoma.

“In Africa, the disease often starts ten years earlier than in other populations, where it starts from age 35. It can also be genetic.

“For instance, if your father, mother, brother or sister had glaucoma, your risk goes up four to nine times. Many families in Nigeria have three generations with glaucoma but they all thought it was ‘family curse’ or ‘old age blindness,” Lincoln Chukwu, an optometrist, said, even as he explained how dangerous glaucoma could be if it is neglected.

According to him, glaucoma is in different forms and can affect people differently, depending on the types and stages. He also explained further that the eye disease can be bipolar or unipolar.

“For instance, unipolar glaucoma affects only one eye, while bipolar affects both eyes,” he said.

Unipolar, according to findings, is common in the early stages and many people don’t notice because the good eye compensates for the bad eye and an individual can be half-blind for years without knowing.

Meanwhile, bipolar glaucoma is also more common as the disease progresses. A good example of this, it was gathered, happens when both eyes are involved and the loss of peripheral vision becomes more obvious.

Benin-based Doctor of Optometry, Odamah Emmanuel, described glaucoma as a silent thief of sight.

Emmanuel said glaucoma could be dangerous to the extent that it is possible for a person to wake up one day and see that his vision is reducing. This, according to him, is possible when the sight becomes narrow and damaged down to the optic nerve and at the end of the day, the person loses his vision and stops seeing.

“The optic nerve collects signal and information from the visual process images. The information collected through the eyes, just like a camera that processes images is the same that now gives us exactly what it is.

“The optic nerve is the channel through which the information goes to the brain to be interpreted based on past experience. This is what is being damaged gradually when there’s a build up pressure being mounted on the optic in the head.

“When pressure is mounted on the optic in the head, all those cells in the optic begin to die because of lack of blood supply. They begin to die gradually because they are deprived of oxygen and at this point, they become necrotic and dead,” he stated.

As dangerous as glaucoma is to eye health, experts agreed that both the young and the old can have glaucoma. Many of the early signs, they admitted, are also easy to miss.

These include mild blurring of vision, seeing halos around lights at night, frequent change of glasses prescription, needing more light to read and loss of side vision, which, they said, resulted in bumping into door frames.

“By the time blurred vision becomes constant, damage may have already started. It can affect either one eye or both eyes and it can result to blurred vision as the optic nerve struggles to send a clear signal to the brain,” Emmanuel said.

Findings revealed that glaucoma has different percentages and stages.

Open-angle glaucoma, it was gathered, is the most common. However, 90 per cent of the cases happened when the drainage angle looks open but drains poorly. And in this situation, it was believed that there would be no symptoms until when it may have become too late.

Also, angle-closure glaucoma occurs when the drainage angle suddenly closes.

According to findings, this can cause severe eye pain, headache, nausea, and blurred vision with rainbow halos. It’s always a situation of emergency.

Normal tension glaucoma, it was also gathered, occurs when the eye pressure is normal, but the optic nerve is damaged. The congenital or juvenile glaucoma are mostly found in children and young adults because it is believed to be generic.

Port Harcourt-based Optometrist, Dr. Ewere M. Apai-Odia, said the eye disease occurs when the optic nerve is affected resulting from an increased fluid inside the eyes.

According to her, glaucoma can result to sudden pain in the eyes, headache, blurry vision, redness, haloes around light as well as short or gradual loss of vision.

Some of the risk factors, she noted, include family history, race, age and diet.

Ewere also pointed out that the eye health disease can be treated when it is detected early.

She advised every individual to go for regular medical check up in order to help discover any issues with the eye.

“Every individual must go for eye examination at least every six months because glaucoma and other eye health diseases can be detected when they are examined early enough.

“Even if somebody is diagnosed to have glaucoma, the vision can still be restored, depending on the stage of the disease.

“For instance, if you are diagnosed at stage 100, that means the eyes are already gone. But if it is just 10 per cent, what that means is that the pressure becomes high and you already have 10 per cent damage. So, it goes to 20, 30, 40 and 50 per cent damage.

“The damage in eye health is always measured by the degree of pressure or by the degree or extent of the optic nerve damage.

“So if you come earlier, when your damage is 50 per cent and you have 50 per cent less, there is still 50 per cent hope of restoring your vision.

“It goes on like that till it gets to 90 per cent when an individual has ten per cent left. Imagine an individual having ten per cent left when he or she is just 18 years old. It is too bad. That is why we always advise every human being to cultivate the idea of engaging in regular check of the eyes,” Ewere said.

Apart from the regular medical check up, experts also explained further that fruits like carrots, cucumber, orange and apple are good for the eyes and can also help in reducing eye pressure and diseases.

“Even egg yolk and green vegetables are also good for the eyes. As far as I am concerned, I always tell my clients that they shouldn’t wait until they begin to lose their sight and start bumping into door frames.

“By then, half of the optic nerve may be gone. Glasses cannot cure glaucoma, only treatment through regular medical check up can control it.

“For instance, glaucoma awareness month is observed every January of each year to raise awareness about glaucoma. My advice is that people should use that window of opportunity to save their sight,” Chukwu, a Lagos- based Optometrist, advised. (The Sun)