Canine glaucoma causes severe pain and rapid vision loss, requiring urgent diagnosis and treatment to preserve both sight and comfort.
Glaucoma is an extremely painful condition - the pressure headache analogy understates the suffering. Affected dogs often show behavioral changes that owners misattribute to aging or character, delaying diagnosis. Once vision is lost in one eye, the other eye is at high risk in primary glaucoma. Pain management is as important as IOP control. In cases where vision cannot be preserved, enucleation (eye removal) is often the most humane option as it definitively eliminates the pain source.