Glaucoma Surgery in Green Bay WI may become necessary despite the use of prescription eye drops. A laser treatment (trabeculoplasty or iridotomy) may have been carried out before and proved to be ineffective, or insufficient, or it did not have lasting effectiveness. Eye pressure may remain too strong and dangerous.
In some cases, it may have lowered to a value that appears normal, but the person’s field of view continues to degrade. This indicates that a drop in the pressure is ultimately not enough and that the doctor needs to get that number even lower. Finally, when the prescribed eye drops are not tolerated (eye pain, allergy, fatigue, breathing difficulties, etc.), the ophthalmologist may propose to treat glaucoma with surgery, so the patient does not go through poorly supported chronic treatment.
Chronic glaucoma surgery techniques
Several surgical techniques are possible to treat glaucoma, all aimed at getting the patient’s eye pressure low enough so that the disease no longer evolves. The conjunctiva (the mucous membrane that covers the eye) must be incised and closed by stitches at the end of the operation. These techniques have different names depending on the surgical procedure chosen by the surgeon: trabeculectomy, sclerotomy, sclerectomy, and so on.
They can be supplemented, during their realization, by the local application of an antimitotic designed to decrease healing when there is an increased risk of failure. This is not systematic because it may have disadvantages, including the post-operative persistence of low eye pressure. Here again, the surgeon will decide if its use is advantageous.
It is rare for micro-prostheses (drain, valves, etc.) to be placed in the eye: most of the time, the effectiveness of Glaucoma Surgery in Green Bay WI does not require any type of implant. Be warned; if cataract surgery can restore excellent vision, glaucoma cannot diminish or eliminate visual field changes, which will persist after surgery.
Routine monitoring is important
Regular monitoring will be necessary because some adults and children will have to be re-operated on a few years later because there is a progressive obstruction of the first intervention, usually caused by a growth phenomenon.
