High intraoccular pressure

cindjo717 · Post by **cindjo717** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 3:59 pm

Hi! I haven't logged on to this forum in so long. Everything has been pretty good, I went to school for my LPN, and got my license! (Thanks to cpap). I went to the eye doc today, (last visit was in Aug) I would like to wear contact lenses. He gave me the intraoccular pressure test, and low and behold it came up slightly above normal. 20 in one eye, and 22 in the other. Glaucoma doesn't run in my family, I was thinking if the C pap could be a culprit in this? Has anyone here had the same issue? I do have a high pressure 16. My doc prescribed 10 but my apnea index was in the teens with that. I got it down to about a 2. I am currently dieting lost five pounds thinking I will try and go a little lower and see how I do. Any thought?

Goofproof · Post by **Goofproof** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 4:11 pm

Failure to use your cpap, can kill you resulting in low intraoccular pressure (room pressure). CPAP causes all things, same as all things cause us to need CPAP treatment. Many things cause it besides cpap, not limited to diabetes, high blood pressure, heart trouble. If the pressure is too high it can be treated with drops. Jim

RandyJ · Post by **RandyJ** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 4:17 pm

There are some scholarly papers that talk about IOP going up during cpap but coming down to normal within an hour or 2 of waking. I'm sure they are available on the 'net.

If you are concerned, ask your ophthalmologist if you can schedule a few pressure checks at different times of day over a 4 to 6 week period to see if there is any variation. Also, make sure they check your pressure with a real machine (the one with the chin rest) and not a hand held pen; the pens are often inaccurate, on the high side.

chunkyfrog · Post by **chunkyfrog** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 4:20 pm

Usually, cpap may help lower eye pressure; but if you are the other group,
the trade-off is a fair one, especially at your relatively moderate pressures.
If the doc has prescribed drops, take them religiously,
using a count-down timer to ensure you block your tear ducts for the entire 3 minutes.
This is the one I use:
http://www.sears.com/taylor-digital-tim ... 804127000P
Just make sure it's digital, and displays seconds. The analog, twisty ones are useless.

cindjo717 · Post by **cindjo717** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 4:40 pm

Thanks guys. I don't have any familial, or disease factors that's why I am suspicious of the cpap. I read up on the NIH that cpap can cause this, that's why I was wondering if anyone else had this experience. He did do the screening which did have a chin rest. He will recheck it next week when I pick up my contacts. He said pressures can fluctuate. It was around 10am, I awoke at 5:30, so plenty of time to come down,

khauser · Post by **khauser** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 4:49 pm

cindjo717 wrote:Hi! I haven't logged on to this forum in so long. Everything has been pretty good, I went to school for my LPN, and got my license! (Thanks to cpap). I went to the eye doc today, (last visit was in Aug) I would like to wear contact lenses. He gave me the intraoccular pressure test, and low and behold it came up slightly above normal. 20 in one eye, and 22 in the other. Glaucoma doesn't run in my family, I was thinking if the C pap could be a culprit in this? Has anyone here had the same issue? I do have a high pressure 16. My doc prescribed 10 but my apnea index was in the teens with that. I got it down to about a 2. I am currently dieting lost five pounds thinking I will try and go a little lower and see how I do. Any thought?

I can see how you'd make that link, but I don't think it holds water. Intraocular pressure changes for a bunch of reasons. Mine ran high, went down, and is slightly high again ... all at the same time as cpap therapy.

chunkyfrog · Post by **chunkyfrog** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 5:13 pm

Bear in mind that the NIH will mention anything ever reported,
no matter how rare, even just a rumor, to cover their silly glutes--just saying.
It is still not a reason for anyone to stop therapy for apnea.

cindjo717 · Post by **cindjo717** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 5:18 pm

I would never stop cpap!!! I will lower my pressure by two tonight and monitor my AHI to see if it goes up. I am at the best I can get for me which as I said is around 2. This machine has made a huge difference in my life, I really can't sleep without it. When I do on very rare occasions, last time being a very nasty tummy virus.( I was afraid that I wouldn't get mask off in time ) it feels like my breaths are so shallow. I wonder if that's my imagination, if it was always that way or that I am so used to my machine forcing the air for me.

MaxDarkside · Post by **MaxDarkside** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 5:52 pm

cindjo717 wrote:Hi! I haven't logged on to this forum in so long. Everything has been pretty good, I went to school for my LPN, and got my license! (Thanks to cpap). I went to the eye doc today, (last visit was in Aug) I would like to wear contact lenses. He gave me the intraoccular pressure test, and low and behold it came up slightly above normal. 20 in one eye, and 22 in the other. Glaucoma doesn't run in my family, I was thinking if the C pap could be a culprit in this? Has anyone here had the same issue? I do have a high pressure 16. My doc prescribed 10 but my apnea index was in the teens with that. I got it down to about a 2. I am currently dieting lost five pounds thinking I will try and go a little lower and see how I do. Any thought?

Yes, I have experience in this... From my experience, my APAP therapy does NOT cause high intraocular pressure. For the last 2 years, pre- and post-cpap, up to just a couple weeks ago, my pressures were very much the same as yours, high and uneven. The uneven part is more of a concern. My eye doc used an "ultrasound thingy" to measure my cornea thickness and yes, mine are thicker than normal, um, like "605" (some units of something) in both eyes. Thick corneas will give a higher pressure readings because they don't deflect as much when he pokes 'em to get the ocular pressures. In my last test my pressures were 19/19. Good. They came down and now are even, after 1.5 years on APAP. The reason they came down is probably not so much APAP but keeping my blood pressure under control.

As an aside, high ocular pressure does not cause glaucoma, it only make it worse by smushing the optic nerve at the retina, the "cup". There are a lot of glaucoma patients with normal pressures.

I do have optic nerve damage at the retina in the left eye, cause unknown. I'm suspicious that it may be from my progressive polyneuropathy, which does seem to attack my left side first (feet, ears, eye), tho the eye doc does not necessarily agree. He'll do a tomography / peripheral vision test next time, in about a year, to compare with the one he did about a year ago.

My 2 cents

caffeinatedcfo · Post by **caffeinatedcfo** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 7:00 pm

I don't think it's your imagination re: breathing. I don't think it's a problem either - just your body saying "hey something is different here."

cindjo717 · Post by **cindjo717** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 7:18 pm

Thanks for the input ! Hopefully it will go down by itself. Will keep you all posted

Kitatonic · Post by **Kitatonic** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 7:26 pm

My opthmalogist argued that CPAP did not increase my IOP, but the underlying OSa might. My usual IOP was falsely low (12) with the puff test, so hearing 18 was alarming.
Continue to monitor it as we'll as your B/P. Do you haves anatomical narrow angle? It's just occurs with aging and was on my problem list, but I was not informed about it.

kteague · Post by **kteague** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 8:04 pm

I did a bit of reading on this after my own eye pressures were measured in the 40's. Some articles said CPAP causes increased pressure, some said sleep apnea itself was a culprit. I don't have a family history of glaucoma. At the time I was on Prednisone, which is said to carry this risk. My docs weaned me off the med as rapidly as was safe to do so. My pressures are lower now as I've been on 2 eyedrops since. Just getting off the med didn't resolve it. Guess I'll never know if getting off CPAP would. Good luck with getting and keeping your pressures down as the threats are real. While I avoided much permanent damage, I know someone personally whose damage was permanent and complete. Glad you got a diagnosis so you can tend to the problem. So many aren't aware there even is a problem.

cindjo717 · Post by **cindjo717** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 4:34 am

This was just a screening, he has to do some type of test if it comes up high on the screening again. I will let you all know what happens next week when I go back. I know that preemies who were on cpap with high pressures suffered blindness , which leads me to believe there's risk here for high pressures.

cindjo717 · Post by **cindjo717** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 4:36 am

Kitatonic wrote:My opthmalogist argued that CPAP did not increase my IOP, but the underlying OSa might. My usual IOP was falsely low (12) with the puff test, so hearing 18 was alarming.
Continue to monitor it as we'll as your B/P. Do you haves anatomical narrow angle? It's just occurs with aging and was on my problem list, but I was not informed about it.

18still within normal range. Why was it falsely low?

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