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While driving to work every day I would pass a huge billboard saying ‘Have you checked your eyesight lately?’
After a month of reading this each day, I decided to go to the optometrist and have a sight test.
It was not what I had expected when I was told I had eye pressure of 18 in one eye and 30 in the other.
The optometrist couldn’t ring the specialist fast enough, and I was seen by the end of that same week.
The specialist informed me I had glaucoma and said I would go blind if I did nothing, and I would probably have to stop driving; and it all just seemed doom and gloom.
I left there in tears, but after a while I decided to look into this and saw the Glaucoma Australia website which was very helpful. It helped me understand what was going on, and what options I had for treating glaucoma.
When my next appointment came around at the eye specialist, he realised that he had not even prescribed me any eye drops. I have since sought alternative specialist advice, and I am now a regular out patient at ‘Eye and Ear on The Park’ in Melbourne.
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'I looked into the Glaucoma Australia website, which was very helpful and it helped me understand what was going on, and what options I had for treating glaucoma'Saskia
Living in York Peninsula community two hour's drive from Adelaide and with no optometrist in her local community, Debra booked an appointment as soon as she could. That’s when she received her life changing diagnosis.
When Bette Smith’s cousin told her they had glaucoma in the family, she did what all Australians should be doing, she got her eyes checked.
My mother was diagnosed with glaucoma when she was about seventy, so I was closely monitored. When there were indicators that I could be following the same path, I was referred to a glaucoma specialist.