Joanna Bradley
Head of Support Services at Glaucoma UK
If you have glaucoma but no one else in your family does, you may understandably wonder why, especially considering glaucoma is often genetic and can run in families.
Glaucoma is a family of diseases usually caused by high eye pressure. The increased pressure in the eye, which happens because of too much fluid in the eye, can damage the optic nerve. When diagnosing the disease, a glaucoma specialist will check the health of different parts of your eye.
Finding a genetic link
Genes, which are passed down from your parents, are involved in making the different parts of your eye and the components within the cells to help them function normally. Sometimes, the genes we inherit can lead to glaucoma.
Perhaps your father had cells that made more fluid than normal, but his fluid drainage worked normally. And perhaps your mother’s drainage channels were a bit narrow, but her eye made the normal amount of fluid, so again she was fine.
But then you inherited your father’s genes for the fluid production and your mother’s genes for the drainage channels. The result is your eye is making too much fluid and it’s struggling to drain effectively, meaning you’ve developed glaucoma.
The genes were in your family all along, but no one person had enough of those genes to develop glaucoma.
The genes were in your family all along, but no one person had enough of those genes to develop glaucoma.
Case study
Jessica is the first person in her family with glaucoma and was diagnosed shortly after being born. She is aware that her future children are at increased risk of developing the disease.
“I was born a typical blue-eyed baby. My eyes were a little cloudy, but this was initially ignored. After lots of tests, I was diagnosed with congenital glaucoma at around six weeks old.
I’m now in my late-twenties and I often chat with my partner about the potential of our future children inheriting glaucoma. I remain optimistic that if my child does have glaucoma, it’s not the end of the world, because the disease has never stopped me from having a normal life. As my family and I have experienced, there is so much help available for people with glaucoma and their loved ones. So, glaucoma will never stop me from having children.
Just because you have glaucoma, doesn’t mean that glaucoma has you. You’re still able to live a happy and fulfilled life.”
