{"id":247362,"date":"2025-07-08T07:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T07:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/247362\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T07:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T07:02:10","slug":"former-mp-had-no-clue-he-had-glaucoma-before-routine-eye-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/247362\/","title":{"rendered":"Former MP &#8216;had no clue&#8217; he had glaucoma before routine eye test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"> &#8220;I had absolutely no clue that there was anything wrong,&#8221; Mr Tyler said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Described as the &#8220;silent thief of sight&#8221;, glaucoma affects about 700,000 people in the UK.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/conditions\/glaucoma\/\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">usually caused by fluid building up, external<\/a> in the front part of the eye, leading to the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain, becoming damaged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The condition does not usually cause any symptoms to begin with and can develop slowly over many years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mr Tyler, the former Liberal Democrats rural affairs spokesperson who became a life peer in 2005, said he remembers the day when he discovered he had glaucoma &#8220;precisely&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It was the day of the [Twin] towers 9\/11 in New York &#8211;  when I went for my usual sight check,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I was an MP in rural Cornwall. I knew nothing about glaucoma. My eyes seemed to be fine. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Like many people, I think you sort of take these things for granted. It is literally out of sight, isn&#8217;t it. So, I was completely taken aback.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;I had absolutely no clue that there was anything wrong,&#8221; Mr Tyler said. Described as the &#8220;silent thief&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-247362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114816335769655926","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}