I was examined for glaucoma today. I've had an increase in the pressure of my eyes in the past two years that was noted during my last eye exam, so I set up a glaucoma test at the advice of my eye doctor.

I really enjoyed the vision test in the first part of the exam -- it was seriously fun, interesting and informative. This involved staring at a lit dot in the middle of a white panel while holding a button. Dots of various sizes and intensities (bright or dim) flash all about the panel testing the entire field of vision. I click the button every time I think I see a dot. Some of the dots are very dim and very tiny, and the test lasts a long while. After about 5 minutes, the panel seemed to be going black on me, the dots were tiny and faint, and I couldn't really tell if I was really seeing the dots, or if they were optical illusions, like after you stare into a bright light and look away, still seeing reverse imagery of that bright light. It was a mildly mind-bending experience. From this a chart was produced which mapped out my whole eye: showing my strong and weak points of vision, and where my blind spots are in each eye (the standard blind spots that everybody has in each eye, just in front of where the optic nerve "cable" enters the eye). I was then showed examples of other peoples' healthy and unhealthy graphs from completing the tests to give me an idea of how my vision relates to most peoples (actually, surprising well and very healthy). This basically established a good baseline so that if the increased pressure in my eyes starts causing a loss of vision, they can see where I started from and know when to take action (prescription eye drops that work to slow, but not stop the loss of vision).

It was the second part of the exam, with the drugs dropped into my eyes (anesthetic an dilator) and the other machine I stuck my head into, with a flash bulb that had to keep going off a mere half-inch from my eyeball, which was not too fun. This resulted, however, in a very impressive, three-dimensional imagery of my optic nerves running through my eyeball! Heh.

All in all, it went well. No loss of vision detected. I'm told that it looks good at this point and that odds are actually in favor of not developing a loss of vision. However, I have to check in annually.

While Googling for info on the experience I had today, I found that Wills-Glaucoma.org has a lot of very useful information. Note made.