June 13, 2023 - EyeClarity Podcast
Today, I want to take a question today from a listener who has high eye pressure, but no Glaucoma. I want to go into the causes and what you can do to bring your eye pressure down. Enjoy the show.
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
eye, hypertension, glaucoma, ocular, pressure, aqueous, podcast, coleus, blogs, improve, optic nerve, xanthan, eyedrops, histamines, soft cloth, information, integrative medicine
00:06
Hey everybody, its Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. If you want to get in touch with me with questions, you can email me at hello@drsamberne.com. And you can always text me your questions at 1-844-932-1291. I would like to let you know about my new membership program. This is going to offer members new information on how to improve their vision and wellness. So you will get access to articles, video, blogs, podcasts, and webinars. Also a live Q&A with me. And all of this information will empower you to make informed decisions about your vision and your health. So to sign up to go to my website, drsamberne.com. And you can see the details there. All right now on to the show.
01:37
Hey everybody, it’s Dr. Sam and I want to take a question today from a listener. She’s got high eye pressure, but she doesn’t have glaucoma. So I want to go into the causes and what you can do to bring your eye pressure down. So in ocular hypertension, there’s a consistently high eye pressure reading that the doctor measures, but there’s no optic nerve damage or visual field loss. Usually it’s a problem with either the aqueous production or the drainage in the eye.
And this is what causes the high eye pressure. So even though I am a believer in the epigenetics model, which says that the genes are expressed, based on our environment, our diet lifestyle, there is a link genetically if your parents or grandparents have had glaucoma, you do have a higher risk of having either glaucoma or in this case, ocular hypertension. I’ve also seen that as you get older, and you have more free radical damage or inflammation in the eye, there’s a higher risk of ocular hypertension and or glaucoma. And in ethnicity, African Americans tend to have more glaucoma or ocular hypertension.
And so these are things to note if you fall into any of those categories. So I’ve done many video blogs and podcasts on primary open angle glaucoma, narrow angle glaucoma, you can find those on my website or YouTube or Facebook. But today because the question is about ocular hypertension, I want to talk about some other causes. One of the causes could be taking either oral or topical corticosteroids. So when you take steroids, this can artificially raise the eye pressure. And so you have ocular hypertension, if you’re taking any kind of corticosteroids. I’ve also found that eye trauma or eye injury can cause ocular hypertension. And this trauma can change the fluid dynamics and flow in the aqueous. And this is another reason why I’ve seen ocular hypertension.
I’ve also seen that certain eye inflammatory diseases like iritis and Uveitis can drive the eye pressure up. And even secondary glaucoma like pseudo exfoliation, glaucoma, which has these flakes that can deposit in the drainage areas of the eye, which also cause ocular hypertension. You know, another thing that I asked a lot about is what kind of medications you’re taking, because certain medications can actually cause your eye pressure to go up. So let’s go through the list. We have things like decongestants anti depressants, any histamines so in treating this condition and I want to talk more holistically are using integrative medicine. One of the herbs I like is something called Coleus and you can get This is a tincture, it’s sold readily all over the internet, I would look for an organic Coleus herbal tincture coleus.
And some of the small studies has been shown to actually bring down the eye pressure, you can take it internally, and then you can also put some drops on a soft cloth, and you can place it over the eyes as a compress. So you’re not going to use the tincture directly on the eyes, but you can use it as a compress. So both orally and topically, that’s one of the best things to do. Number two, I would suggest getting some kind of either lymphatic drainage treatment, massage cranial sacral therapy works really well of course, being a cranial sacral therapist, I’ve actually measured people’s eye pressures before and after I do a cranial treatment. And usually the pressure can come down anywhere between three and six points just after an hour treatment.
I also like acupuncture. You know as I’ve said in other video, blogs, the liver, gallbladder, spleen, colon, stomach, all of these meridians tend to go to the eyes. And if you open up the meridians, you can actually change the energy distribution. So this can be another positive factor in being able to reduce eye pressure. Obviously things like adding your antioxidants, vitamin A and zinc, bilberry gingko these are all really great for circulation and one of my favorites is nitric oxide. I’ve talked about how nitric oxide as an ingredient can be a natural vasodilator.
And so I would include that in the mix and of course things like lutein, zeaxanthin, and astaxanthin. You can get those through your colorful fruits and vegetables obviously astaxanthin is a marine carotenoid. So I would like to leave you with this if you have been diagnosed with ocular hypertension, but you don’t have glaucoma. I think being proactive with improving your eyes circulation your oxygenation, improving those micro capillaries in the retina and the optic nerve in the macula. That’s the name of the game. And you can do it through diet, you can do it through some structural bodywork, and even some herbal remedies. So there are ways that you can actually control and bring down your eye pressure. You know, it was in a glaucoma meeting last year.
And one of the last things that was said is that meditation can also bring down the eye pressure. And there are studies out that show that meditating actually has brought down the eye pressure. So there’s a lot of ways to improve this situation without taking pharmaceutical eyedrops. I would certainly try those first. The natural methods because the pharmaceutical eyedrops tend to treat symptoms and they’ve got a lot of nasty side effects. But of course you want to stay away from things like you know vitrectomies and other invasive surgeries. So that’s my hot take on ocular hypertension. I want to thank you so much for joining me today. Until next time, take good care
08:27
Thank you for listening. I hope you learned something from the EyeClarity podcast show today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review. See you here next time.
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