If you could call someone with a condition which threatens to take away his sight fortunate, then I would think that I qualify. As mentioned, typical open angle glaucoma, OAG, has few if any symptoms. It is the silent thief of sight. Just imagine if Ray Charles was not blind due to undiagnosed open angle glaucoma, how that gifted individual could have achieved. He was a very rare exception in that he succeeded with his career in spite of the blindness, unlike so many, many others. He was born normally sighted, but glaucoma took his sight in early childhood. The tragedy for him has highlighted the problem to some extent, but it still goes on every day and generally we don’t even hear of it.

My case was quite different in that, because my glaucoma was secondary and originally thought to have been caused by a condition known as XFM or psudeo exfoliation syntrome, which simply means that there appears within the aqueous humor in the eye some white particles of protein, the origin of which is not easily determined. It is thought likely that these particles block the drainage of the eye thus causing high intraoccular pressure.

It displayed symptoms similar to closed angle glaucoma. Closed angle glaucoma is caused when the trabecular meshwork, or drainage angle of the eye is suddenly blocked by collapsing forward of the iris and causes dramatic symptoms that generally cause the sufferer to go to a doctor and get advice. These symptoms do include pain, but most noticeably, an unusual sight anomaly of seeing halos around points of light against a dark background such as oncoming car headlights. When this happens, it is a medical emergency, and blindness can result in very quickly if not treated promptly and the pressure relieved. Unfortunately, many people will still try to ignore the symptoms and hope that it will go away, and only finally seek medical advice when a great deal of damage is already done. In these cases, the doctor can only have bad news for the unfortunate sufferer.

It was the halos of light that I noticed at that first time, some 15 years ago, that made me ask my doctor what was causing it. This is another fortunate event in this whole story because I noticed the halos around car headlights as I was on the way to my doctor one evening because of a bout of the flu. I generally don’t believe in coincidence, but….. well…… this was indeed a coincidence…… of divine intervention……. or providence….. or fate….. or just plain old dumb luck. Whatever…. but there I was, going to the doctor and seeing halos around car headlights coming toward me. If I was not already going to see the doctor, I would not bother to make any special appointment just for this, and ignored it and thought it would go away, just as so many other people have done to their grief. Also, my problem is only in one eye, and by closing my righ eye, the halos were not there, but closing my left eye and they were even more vivid. thus I knew that this was happing to me, and not fog in the air or an oily film on the windshield or any other such external issue that I might have been able to think of for which I could attribute the lights behaving in that way. With this unusual way of finding out, it was “lucky” that I found out that I was very unlucky to be suffering from such an affliction. Without that fortunate event, the outcome would have been very different.

Up until that time I had not even heard the word glaucoma much less understood what that could mean long term for me when I was diagnosed. My appointment was finished and medication for my bout of flu duely issued, and I almost casually asked the doctor to look into my right eye and if there was an explanation for the odd halos appearing. She peered into my eye, thought looked okay, but then on a hunch, got out a very old and mechanical device called a Schiotz Tonometer invented in 1905 and not changed much to this day.

My doctor at that time was quite intrigued to see such an unusual case of a disease that was so rarely seen, especially in someone as young as I was at that time. A doctor seeing something that triggers their curiosity is of little comfort to the sufferer, especially when the ramifications are fully understood. Of course, she took all the appropriate actions. She woke up the people at the hospital, ordered me (certainly not asked me) to go there immediately, issued me with two tablets which I took as directed, and sent me off to get started with my new life with glaucoma. I have only found out recently what the two tablets were, but have in recent years I have come to need this medication too frequently.