Glaucoma is a specific eye condition in which your optic nerve is damaged that may lead to permanent blindness, if not treated on time. It is characterized by the build-up of intra-ocular pressure caused by the slow draining of fluid in the anterior chamber of the eye. As it may go unnoticed for years, it is in the best interest of a person with diabetes or a family history of glaucoma to visit eye specialist and get the checkups done once in a year. As there is no cure for the loss of vision due to glaucoma, hence the early diagnosis and immediate treatment for glaucoma in its early stage is very critical.
Causes and types of glaucoma
Some of the factors that may cause glaucoma are enumerated below:
- Long time using electronics
- Inherited from family members
- Eye injury
- Severe eye infection
- Inflammatory condition
- Blocked blood vessels
Glaucoma affects both the eyes but one may have more elevated eye pressure in one eye than the other. There are two main types of glaucoma
Open-angle glaucoma
This is the commonest form of glaucoma that accounts for 90% of all glaucoma cases. This is a lifelong symptom that develops slowly and most often goes unnoticed. In this type, the iris and the cornea form normal angles.
Angle-closure glaucoma
People with this type of glaucoma experience a sudden increase in eye pressure that requires immediate treatment as it may soon lead to blindness. In this case, the iris and cornea make a narrow-angle and its symptoms like redness of the eye, headache, blurred vision and severe eye pain are prominent that can be easily noticed.
Normal tension glaucoma
When the optic nerve gets damaged even at the normal eye pressure (12-22 mm. Hg), then this is the case of normal tension glaucoma. The causes are unknown and reducing eye pressure with laser treatment and eye drop are not an effective treatment for this type of glaucoma.
Congenital Glaucoma
This rare type of glaucoma affects babies who inherit them from either of their parents. This is characterized by the incomplete development of the drainage canals of eyes during the prenatal period. This is treated by microsurgery or medications.
When it comes to glaucoma treatment, people have various options to select from such as eye drops, surgery, or laser treatment. However, surgery, laser treatment or medication, can cause dry eye, blurry vision, scar tissue, especially infection, which sometimes leads to permanent blindness.
The traditional Chinese Medicine like acupuncture provides a less invasive and safer way to control and prevent the effects of glaucoma.
How Acupuncture helps in Glaucoma treatment?
Barring the emergency cases of angle-closure glaucoma, acupuncture treatment for the initial stage of open-angle glaucoma from a licensed acupuncturist can be highly effective for glaucoma treatment.
The combination of acupuncture along with the Chinese herbs has been found to deliver promising results. This helps glaucoma patients in the following ways:
- It reduces intra-ocular pressure
- It improves the blood flow to the optic nerve
- It improves more visual acuity and reduce the dryness
- It improves the overall health of the body
- It improves the function of the optic nerve and speed up the regeneration of the optic nerves
- It prevents eye infection by reducing the dryness and strengthening the immune function.
Why select Boca Acupuncture for Acupuncture for Glaucoma?
Boca Acupuncturist has accumulated more than 20 years of clinical experiences to treat a different kind of eye problems. Our Chinese acupuncturist provides effective acupuncture treatment for both open-angle glaucoma and closed-angle glaucoma. Our acupuncturist employs the combined therapy of herbal medicines as well as electrical acupuncture that reduces intra-ocular pressure, slow down nerve degeneration by increasing blood flow to eyes and stimulates the production of nerve growth factors that repairs the damaged nerve cells. Boca acupuncturist can help you find the causes of glaucoma and design a protocol to get rid of the root causes. We do not just reduce the eye pressure, we want to prevent glaucoma from damaging the vision and slow down the aging process.
Read Our Case Study Here:
Mr. Lin was born in Pompano Beach in a well-educated family. He went to Howard University in Boston and became a writer after his graduation. He spends winter time in Boca Raton to focus on his writing and enjoy the sunshine. As a writer, he uses a computer for more than 5 hours a day. At age of 50 years old, he was diagnosed with glaucoma in a hospital located in Fort Lauderdale. His eye pressure can go up to 23, his ophthalmologist in Fort Lauderdale recommend him have laser surgery to reduce the pressure. He started chatting online with all the people who have laser surgery in different hospitals located in Boca Raton, Palm Beach, West Palm Beach and Delray Beach, hoping he can get satisfied answer from other patients. His conclusion is there is no guarantee about lowering the eye pressure from the long run. Most likely, patients will have scar tissues forms and need another surgery. Sometimes, the scar tissue builds up to the point even 3 to 4 eye drops cannot lower the pressure and the eye pressure can go up to 40 or 60. He has been famous in writing the article on the internet about the medical issues in Boynton Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Coral Springs, Parkland, Pompano Beach and Palm Beach Gardens, he understands if the eye pressure goes up too high, he may lose his eyesight and he cannot write anymore. He started doing some research to see if acupuncture and acupressure can help him lower the eye pressure without the surgery. He even bought an 8000 fancy machine to monitor his eye pressure 3 times a day.
Mr. Lin came to Boca Raton acupuncture clinic 3 years ago after he did thorough research on all the acupuncture clinics in Boca Raton, Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Coconut Creek, Deerfield Beach, Lake Worth, Pompano Beach and Weston areas. He found that Boca Raton acupuncturist has been treating glaucoma for more than 20 years and they also teach people to do the acupressure during the treatment. He started treatment in Boca acupuncture clinic right away after he had gathered all the information about acupuncture and glaucoma. Only after 6 treatments, his eye pressure dropped to 17 from 23. But the eye pressure can go up after a few days if he reads to much. He started acupressure training with his acupuncturist in Boca Raton. Every morning he will measure his eye pressure, meditate and does his eye pressure faithfully. He then uses his machine to measure the eye pressure, which consistently dropped his eye pressure to the normal range. Now he only comes to his acupuncturist every other week to make sure to bring the energy to his eyes and reduce the stress.
Case Study
Lori was born in Delray Beach. Her family moved to Boca Raton just before she went into elementary school because of the good school system there. She studied very hard and got a scholarship at FAU in Boca. Like other young college students, she spent more than eight hours in front of her computer and another two extra hours staring at her cell phone. She was first diagnosed at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, while in college, as being near sighted. She went to an optometrist in Delray Beach and got her first pair of eyeglasses.
After she graduated from FAU in Boca, she started her medical billing career in a private Boynton Beach clinic. She continued to stare at her computer for over seven hours each day to help the medical doctors receive payment from the insurance companies. She had to change her glasses again two years after beginning her medical billing career in Boynton Beach.
At the age of 25, she decided to get rid of her glasses and had laser surgery done in West Palm Beach Hospital. She was told she may experience a dry eye condition after the surgery and would need to use eye drops to moisturize her eyes. She was advised everything would be all right after a few weeks. (She had taken a week’s vacation to have the surgery performed and then returned to work as a medical billing agent.) Unfortunately, her dry eyes became worse a few weeks after her surgery. She needed to use eye drops every two hours and her eyes were very red whenever she worked in front of the computer for two or three hours. She then developed an infection and had to use antibiotics.
She went to another ophthalmologist in Coconut Creek in hopes of getting a “magic” treatment. She was given new eye drops by the ophthalmologist in Coconut Creek. She faithfully used the eye drops for a few weeks. She also started another job as a waitress in a restaurant in Pompano Beach so that she could cut down on the hours working at the computer. Her eye condition did not improve significantly.
A few months after her laser surgery, she was told that her eye pressure had started to increase. The left eye pressure was 21 and the right one was 18. During the laser surgery, her retina tear was repaired in her left and right eyes. She was very surprised that her eye pressure went up because her eye pressure was always below 18 and she had very low blood pressure. She started using eye drops for her high eye pressure. Her dry eye condition got worse because of reduced fluid to nourish her eyes. Finally, she decided to try acupuncture to help lower her eye pressure and relieve her dry eyes.
Lori started acupuncture treatment twice a week in Boca acupuncture clinic six months after her laser surgery in West Palm Beach Hospital. Her Chinese acupuncturist told her to cut down on coffee because caffeine can constrict blood vessels and tighten up the muscles around her eyes, hands and feet. In the meantime, she started drinking raw green juice to help reduce inflammation in her eyes and joints.
Lori developed tendinitis around her elbow and thumb many years ago because of the typing involved in her medical position.
After 24 acupuncture treatments, her dry eye condition is much better and her eye pressure dropped to 18. She uses her eye drops only twice a day and her vision has improved with more blood flow to her eyes. Now, Lori comes to the Boca acupuncture clinic only every two to three weeks to keep her eye muscles and elbow ligaments in a balanced condition. So, now she does not have to have surgery to lower her eye pressure and to fix her tendinitis.