Symptoms

What are the symptoms of glaucoma?

Symptoms of glaucoma depend on the stage and type of disease, and may be unrecognized for a long time. Unfortunately, often in everyday practice, advanced glaucoma damages are discovered, without even causing any disturbances to that person. Glaucoma is usually detected during the first detailed eye examination at a time when patients feel presbyopic disturbance (age related farsightedness) and come to do the examination to determine diopter of eyeglasses they need to get. After some research, only half of patients with glaucoma are aware of their disease.  In the early stages it is usually asymptomatic and therefore is often called the "silent thief" of the sight.

In open angle glaucoma symptoms often do not exist. Often patients come to the clinic only when damage of the optic nerve and changes in the visual field occurred. On the other hand, the symptoms of angle-closure glaucoma can be very turbulent. Some of the symptoms are extremely high eye pressure, significant drop in visual acuity, pain in the region of the eye, headache, nausea and vomiting.