Does Glaucoma treatment hurt?

Does glaucoma treatment hurt? Glaucoma treatments mostly don’t hurt. However, it’s important for me to talk to you about the potential side effects that might be associated with different glaucoma treatments. So, for instance, if we talk about eye drops a small proportion of people might experience a bit of grittiness or a foreign body sensation when taking eye drops. But the vast majority of people who take glaucoma eye drops don’t experience any side effects at all.

Concerning glaucoma laser treatment, when we apply glaucoma laser treatments you might experience a sensation of grittiness or a stinging sensation as the treatment is given. But after the initial recovery period then the treatment won’t hurt at all.

Glaucoma surgical treatments

Glaucoma surgical treatments, there are quite a few glaucoma surgical treatments, it’s important to talk through each treatment with yourself so that you fully understand what you’re undertaking. But regarding the aftercare and the side effects associated with glaucoma surgery, well in the first few days you might experience a gritty sensation.

Your eye might be a bit red after a glaucoma operation. But we use a combination of eye drops; anti-inflammatory eye drops to mitigate against those sort of issues. When you’re undertaking a glaucoma operation, I would want to explain to you the complexity and the undertaking of the glaucoma operation and the potential side effects and complications.

So in rare cases where complications occur, you might experience some eye pain, and that might be an important sign to recognise because you would want to get in touch with me as soon as possible so that we could understand what the problem was and deal with it.

There are two types of glaucoma laser (selective laser trabeculoplasty and peripheral iridotomy) that we perform. After the treatment is given, we usually prescribe anti-inflammatory eye drops for up to a week to reduce any reaction to the laser treatment. This reduces the risk of developing soreness and/or pain after the treatment.