January is National Glaucoma Awareness Month. During the first month of the year, ophthalmologists and eye health organizations work to spread awareness about the ocular disease that affects African Americans at significantly greater rates than other groups of people.
The National Eye Institute defines glaucoma as a group of eye diseases that can cause vision loss and blindness by damaging the optic nerve. The optic nerve is the second cranial nerve composed of over 1 million nerve fibers responsible for transmitting visual information.
Roughly 50% of people with glaucoma across the country are unaware that they have the disease.
“Glaucoma is a leading cause of vision loss and blindness in the United States. But half of people with glaucoma don’t know they have it,” according to the National Eye Institute. “Because it happens so slowly, many people can’t tell that their vision is changing at first.”
Damage to the optic nerve is largely precipitated by vascular changes, trauma, and elevated eye pressure being the number one risk factor of glaucoma. Elevated eye pressure ultimately becomes a dangerous ingredient for irreversible eye damage when left unaddressed.
Dr. Leslie Jones, glaucoma specialist and chair of Ophthalmology at Howard University’s College of Medicine, stressed the importance of seeking comprehensive dilated eye examinations to know the status of ocular health.
“Glaucoma is a disease of the optic nerve and a lot of things in the eye can happen that lead to end-stage damage of the nerve — that is called glaucoma. For example, you can be hit in the eye, your eye can fill with blood [causing] the pressure to go high and you can have glaucoma. You can have neovascular changes which come from uncontrolled diabetes, and that can cause a very serious kind of glaucoma,” Jones told The Informer. “But what we talk most about is primary open-angle glaucoma, which tends to be a slow, gradual loss of nerve tissue, but it goes undetected because it doesn’t have a lot of symptoms.”
Common signs of glaucoma that are often overlooked present themselves as hazy or blurred vision, accompanied by other symptoms including severe pain around the eyes or head. Red eyes are also caused by increasing eye pressure or seeing colored bright circles or halos forming around light sources.
African Americans Face Higher Risk of Glaucoma Disease
While people of any age or race can develop the disease, statistics underscore an increased risk of diagnosis to genetic factors in African Americans.
Although the average age of increased risk for glaucoma generally falls around 60 years old, the risk increases at age 40 for Black people. African American patients are found six times more likely to have advanced vision loss following a glaucoma diagnosis than their white counterparts.
Epidemiological studies examining the risk factors of glaucoma disease have also found hereditary factors to play a role, as individuals who have a family member with glaucoma have a four to six times higher risk of developing the chronic disease.
Access to eye care also is a challenge for Black Americans.
“I have some people that come from [long distances]to see me. So, [one factor] can be the distance to the provider, but it can also be [if] the provider takes your insurance,” said Jones. “I find that is a [concern] that needs to be looked at because there are a lot of insurances in D.C. that [are not accepted] by a majority of eye care providers. That means its population may not have access to the doctors that they need to see.”
Treating the Problem
While the damage caused by glaucoma cannot be reversed, regular checkups and proper treatment can help to slow or prevent vision loss, particularly if the disease is caught in its earlier stages.
Dr. Jones emphasized the use of medications and in some cases surgery to help reduce eye pressure and ease symptoms of the disease.
“We have five different classes of medications we can use to lower eye pressure and those are the tools that we have. There are laser procedures that we like to do early. So we first diagnose you if you have open-angle glaucoma,” Jones explained. “There is a laser called selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) we like to use as a first-line treatment, but then we use all these different medications to lower pressure. There are [also several] surgeries that can lower eye pressure.”
As someone who has worn glasses since age 6, Mike Green, 75, told The Informer he has always been intentional about regular visits to ophthalmologists. Though District doctors noted he had elevated eye pressure years ago, they didn’t officially diagnose glaucoma. He also never had any noticeable or worrisome symptoms.
Green, who lives between D.C. and Medellin, Colombia, continued regular visits abroad. After having eye trauma and being treated for something else, he eventually got a glaucoma diagnosis in Medellin.
“I’m so thankful I have a diagnosis,” Green said. “Though I’ve now struggled with blurred and decreased vision, my ophthalmology team and I have come together for a great treatment plan that has included eye drops, procedures, and surgery.”
Glaucoma Awareness in the District
To address ocular health in the District, Your Eyes DC is hosting a string of educational events to spread awareness about glaucoma over the next few weeks into February. The organization is kicking off festivities with a glaucoma presentation and free screenings on Saturday, Jan. 27 at the Friendship Heights Village Center.
Both Your Eyes DC and Dr. Jones work to push the importance of eye care screenings and understanding familial medical history to know potential risks and avoid grim outcomes.
“It is important to [talk to] your family members,” said Jones. “A lot of us do not know what our elders have gone through as far as their medical history because they are often kind of quiet about it. So, it means we have to ask them to find out about our own risk and we need to get regularly evaluated because the only way to know what your risk is to be seen by the doctor.”