The most widely used maintenance eyedrop, timolol, maintains a safe pressure by decreasing the amount of fluid produced in the eye. One of the beta blockers, timolol's side effects include lowered blood pressure and pulse rate, and possible respiratory problems in some elderly people. Among the advantages of latanoprost over timolol is that the new drug requires only one dose a day instead of two. A century-old predecessor of timolol is the medicine pilocarpine. Pilocarpine works to improve the drainage of fluid, another means of maintaining safe pressure within the eye.
All glaucoma medications are potent drugs.
They should never be taken without food or in combination with other medications without consulting a physician. Acute glaucoma should be treated as an emergency. Procedures in a hospital emergency room or at an ophthalmologist's office include administering eye-drops and clinical eye massage. Once glaucoma is stabilized, painless laser surgery can be used to create an artificial opening in the affected eye through which the aqueous humor can drain. As the condition can be assumed to exist to some degree in the other eye as well, laser surgery may be performed there to forestall a second attack.