by Dr. Frank McGehee
Glaucoma is an eye disease caused by a high intraocular presure and has no cure. Conventional medical therapy includes topical eye drops and oral medication. Can the ocular pressure be even more controlled with the nutrition added to standard therapy? If the blood flow to the eye can be increased, the answer is yes.
First, let’s define glaucoma. It is a disease where high eye pressure within the eye impedes the blood flow coming into the eye., resulting in the loss of vision.
The high pressure is caused by the obstruction of the aqueous fluid outflow. Aqueous fluid is secreted in the eye, which provides oxygen and other nutrients to the eye’s internal structures.
The fluid has to exit the eye because more fluid is constantly being made. When the fluid cannot exit the eye properly, the eye pressure increases. If the eye pressure becomes higher than the blood flow pressure entering the eye, glaucoma will develop.
During the 20th century, eye doctors have been treating elevated eye pressure with prescription eye drops but they have not addressed the nutritional therapy needed to increase the blood flow to the eye. First, it is necessary to find whether the blood flow is decreased.
This is done using an opthalmic test called an ocular blood flow analyzer. This is a Medicare-approved test for evaluating glaucoma. This test, along with the nerve fiber analyzer test, can be used on anyone to diagnose a potential glaucoma patient long before it occurs. It’s especially important for those who are already on treatment. How does a lower blood flow cause visual loss? With a decreased blood flow there is less oxygen and nutrients available for the retina.
Less oxygen can also be a problem in a normal blood flow if the patient is anemic. This is because there are less red blood cells to carry oxygen. A standard blood count therefore should be performed on all glaucoma patients. The rate of blood flow entering the eye is influenced by the blood viscosity, by the blood pressure and by the resistance of the arterial walls that carry the blood.
This latter condition is known as hardening of the arteries and can be due to cholesterol plaque, toxic mineral infiltration or hypertension. All these conditions can be improved or controlled once they are diagnosed. What has not been addressed is how to improve the blood viscosity. If the ocular blood flow analyzers show a low blood flow, both a serum thrombin is a specialized test analyzed at a nutritional lab.
Most of the time in older patients, these blood elements are elevated. They’re referred to as pre-clotting factors which can be reduced if elevated. Serum fibrinogen can be reduced using a nutritional supplement called natokinase. A high thrombin level can be reduced by using fish oil capsules. Since fish oil and aspirin can both cause a decrease in platelet aggregation in the same way, care must be taken to either decrease or discontinue aspirin therapy while on fish oil.
The good news is fish oil under a doctor’s supervision does not cause the bruising that aspirin can. To evaluate the nutritional changes both of these two tests can be repeated in 90 days after treatment and observed for improvement. Then the ocular blood flow analyzer can also be repeated to show the effects of their improvement on the blood flow entering the eye.
The nutritional therapy for increasing blood flow may give the eye doctor another way to control the eye pressure in addition to conventional medical therapy. It may be possible to prolong the need for glaucoma surgery and may even reduce the number of times that eye drops are necessary.
Glaucoma may also respond to oxygen therapy provided that the blood saturation level of oxygen is lower than normal. This can be tested by using a pulse oximeter overnight at home. The oxygen level is checked every twelve seconds for eight hours and the results are printed out on a computer.
If the oxygen saturation is identified as low over a period of time, most insurance companies cover the cost of oxygen therapy.
Another way to increase the blood flow of the eye is with microcurrent therapy as discussed in another discussion. Using both these two therapies along with evaluating blood clotting factors gives the eye doctor a totally new approach to treating a non-curable eye disease. All glaucoma patients should be evaluated with these tests.