Can dogs develop glaucoma?

Question

Joshua Broadwater · Answer

Can dogs develop glaucoma? It's a great question and unfortunately yes they can. This is something we see very commonly in the veterinary ophthalmology field. What glaucoma is, is a high pressure inside the eyes and if that high pressure stays too high for too long, it will cause pain and loss of vision. And so our eyes, much like dogs eyes, has a normal pressure inside of it and how that pressure is created is by fluid called aqueous humor floating around inside of our eye. And that aqueous humor is created by an area of the eye called the ciliary body or ciliary processes. And so we compare that to the faucet of a sink that is producing fluid. And that fluid flows around our eye, just like the sink in your kitchen. And then eventually that fluid exits the eye out the drain, just like the drain within your kitchen. But glaucoma develops when that drainage area, which is called the iridocorneal angle, either closes or it's clogged with something. So it's just like putting a stopper in your drain, but the faucet is still running and eventually that pressure becomes too high inside the eye to cause a very high pressure, pain and vision loss. So it's a very serious issue that we see and it can occur very quickly in dogs. So important recognition by a veterinarian or a veterinary ophthalmologist to recognize when glaucoma is present and treat that. And there is treatment available and this may be medical treatment, it may be surgical treatment, but there are options available to try to lower that pressure so that we preserve their vision and we don't have an animal that goes blind for this particular reason. So yes, we do see glaucoma frequently, but there are treatment options.

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"Can dogs develop glaucoma?"