Glaucoma

Watchful, proactive pressure care that protects your sight for the long run.

Glaucoma is called the silent thief of sight for a reason: it takes peripheral vision so gradually that most people notice nothing until real damage is done. The encouraging part is just as real, caught early and managed well, glaucoma almost never has to cost you the vision you rely on.

At Aviva, glaucoma care means careful measurement, honest conversation, and a treatment plan calibrated to your eyes, not a one-size prescription.

Who this helps

Make time for an evaluation if:

A routine exam flagged elevated pressure or a suspicious-looking optic nerve
Glaucoma runs in your family, risk climbs sharply with a parent or sibling affected
You are over sixty, or over forty with additional risk factors
You have not had a dilated eye exam in several years

Because early glaucoma has no symptoms, the exam is the screening, there is no waiting for a warning sign that will not come.

Benefits

Sight protected for decades, the overwhelming outcome of glaucoma caught early
Modern options beyond a lifetime of drops, including gentle in-office laser treatment
A monitoring rhythm matched to your actual risk, not a generic schedule
Straight answers about what your numbers mean and when they matter

Treatment detail

Glaucoma damages the optic nerve, most often because the eye’s internal pressure sits higher than that nerve can tolerate. Vision lost to glaucoma does not come back, which is why the entire discipline is built around catching it early and keeping pressure in a safe range.

How we manage it

A complete picture first: pressure, optic nerve imaging, corneal thickness, and visual field mapping establish exactly where your eyes stand.
If treatment is needed, it starts conservatively, prescription drops or an in-office laser treatment (SLT) that helps the eye drain on its own, often reducing or replacing drops.
Monitoring at a rhythm set by your risk: stable eyes need only periodic confirmation, changing eyes get attention before change becomes loss.

Many patients referred as "glaucoma suspects" turn out to need only watching. When that is the honest answer, it is the answer you will get.

Recovery

After your evaluation, you leave knowing exactly where your eyes stand and what, if anything, needs doing.
Starting treatment, pressure responds within weeks; a follow-up confirms the plan is protecting the nerve.
Ongoing, periodic imaging and field checks confirm stability, most visits end with "no change," which is the goal.

Risks & limitations

The real risk in glaucoma is time: vision already lost cannot be restored, and untreated pressure keeps taking more. Treatment is about protecting what you have, started early, it almost always succeeds.

Drops can irritate or redden some eyes, and laser treatment occasionally needs repeating years later. These are manageable trade-offs, and Dr. Thornton will walk you through the ones that apply to your plan.

Questions, answered

Will I go blind from glaucoma?

With modern care, almost certainly not. Blindness from glaucoma is overwhelmingly a disease of late discovery and no treatment. Caught early and managed, the odds of keeping useful vision for life are very much in your favor.

Do glaucoma tests hurt?

No. Modern pressure checks are a puff-free gentle touch after numbing drops, and imaging is just photography. The visual field test asks more of your patience than your comfort.

Will I be on drops for the rest of my life?

Not necessarily. SLT laser treatment helps many eyes regulate their own pressure and can reduce or replace drops entirely, for some patients it is the first treatment, not the fallback.

My pressure is high but my vision feels fine. Why treat it?

Because glaucoma spends years taking vision you will not miss until it is gone, peripheral first, silently. Treating high-risk pressure while your vision is still perfect is the entire strategy.