Saving your sight. The ground breaking procedure that could help change the way you look at things from now on. An eye doctor is among the first in central Ohio to use a new treatment to help save a patient’s sight, it allow them to return to work and see a lot clearer.
At age 45 Myles Gordon thought he was too young for glaucoma. Glaucoma damages the optic nerve. It blocks channels in the eye that could lead to blindness. Though it can strike at any age, it’s more common in older people, older than Myles.
“I know it’s disturbing. It was kind of getting dark, darker than it should be.”
Pressure was building in his right eye so his eye doctor said Myles to see Dr. Robert Derick, a Columbus Ophthalmology Associates. While glaucoma is often treated with drugs or surgery, Dr. Derick is doing a minimally invasive procedure to ease the pressure in the eye; it’s called the canaloplasty. Traditional surgery opens a new drainage channel, but he says this treatment is more like opening a blocked artery in the heart.
“In canaloplasty we actually inflate the natural canal, we don’t use a balloon; we use clear viscous jelly and would put a suture end after that.”
He says that holds the canal open and eases pressure. The procedure can’t undo damage over it done to the eye but it prevents more. Myles says the surgery was painless and he sees more clearly now, clear enough to return to work.
“When I move my eyes … you don’t realize how much depth perception you lose.”
Four millions Americans have glaucoma, half don’t even know it. The way to find the disease is to get your eyes examined.
