2 days ago

SnowLemmings • 10

@snowlemmings

So as an East Asian male who is 26 and has been just diagnosed this March (POAG, IOP 18-21 (after CCT adjustment) upon diagnosis, can be brought down to 9-12 (after CCT adjustment) using Carteolol and Latanoprost; CCT 630-something OU; RNFL OD 79, OS 81; CDR 0.7 OU; -5.75 diopters OU, astigmatism -1.0 OU; axial length 27.09 OS, 27.23 OD), I would like to ask what is the consensus here regarding weightlifting.

People on Reddit's r/Glaucoma range from weightlifting is 100% okay as long as no Valsava maneuver and keeping head above heart, to using low-weight-high-reps plus the aforementioned no Valsava plus keeping head above heart and no bench, to using iHome 2 to monitor low-weight-high-reps plus the aforementioned no-nos while intermittently adding cardio to lower IOP.

I have also checked out many websites regarding this topic. While they generally warn against lifting heavy and Valsava, other details seem to be vague as they only offer general guidelines on what and what not to do.

So what are your views? Anyone here who also lift? What is the consensus? Thanks a lot!

2 days ago

david 4.3k

@david_fe

Hi. Thanks for your question on this important topic. Sorry for the delayed reply. I wrote many of the Reddit posts in both r/Glaucoma and r/AskGlaucoma, as well as posts going back almost 20 years on www.fiteyes.com.

Since you have already likely read many of my prior posts, and those posts do not diverge from the general consensus here, I do not have a whole lot to add -- except, the one thing I wish I had known about 20 years ago (or even 5 years ago), which is EPOCT.

EPOCT is a method of using frequent OCT exams to quickly and rigorously answer questions such as yours. What you really want to know if whether it is safe for you to do weight lifting in the style and with the intensity that you are practicing. No general study is capable of answering that question for you. As with self-tonometry, blood pressure monitoring, glucose monitoring, etc., getting your answer for your body requires collecting and analyzing your own data. In this case, we're using EPOCT to do that for the health of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL).

EPOCT has been extensively discussed in the FitEyes email group. So far I have not posted much on it here on Ask FitEyes. I will try to remedy that in the future. However, if you have access to the email group, you can look up EPOCT up in archives.