This book is a great contribution to the emerging paradigm of 21st-century vision care. It provides a thorough review of many healing modalities in order to help a person's eye, body and soul heal the condition of glaucoma... A must for any patient or professional working with this condition. Dr. Swartwout is a pioneer in helping to regenerate our precious gift of sight.

This book opens up streams of insights that guide one to understand the nature of glaucoma, the underlying causes and the many natural supports to be used to begin a healing process...

Conventional medicine considers glaucoma to be irreversible -- there is no avenue for healing. This book, by a conventionally trained eye doctor, offers an alternative and much more hopeful view. After nearly four decades of struggle with his own glaucoma, the book's author has much to say that deserves a careful read.
Please note: like many books now authored by specialists, this text is filled with valuable information, but is poorly organized for use by general readership. I recommend reading it as if editing, with colored markers to highlight different categories of information:
1. General recommendations
2. Suggestions for reducing fluid pressure in the eye
3. Suggestions for healing damaged optic nerve and related tissue
After marking up these categories, you can then copy the most useful information, making your own working outline. That becomes a plan of action.
Here are some notes on these categories.
General recommendations.
The author (Dr. Glen) offers a view of healing that would be shared by most alternative practitioners. He recommends diet and lifestyle changes -- eating organic food, drinking purified ionized water, exercise, and much more, in considerable detail. With regard specifically to eyes, he recommends less time spent sitting and reading/viewing of books/screens, more time looking at things outdoors, preferably without glasses. For many, following this last recommendation involves major shifts in work and social patterns.
Under this category I flagged recommendations for carrot juice, mangosteen (fruit), garlic, ginger, cayenne and coenzyme Q10).

Reducing fluid pressure in eyes.
If you make a diagram with all instances of elevated eye pressure in one circle, and optic nerve deterioration in another, they overlap by perhaps 50%. Optic nerve deterioration is Glaucoma, elevated fluid pressure is Ocular Hypertension. They are not the same. Conventional surgeries and pharmaceuticals may treat hypertension, but do not address optic nerve damage. Dr. Glen discusses all of this in a constructive manner and recommends many methods for reducing eye pressure, often more effectively than surgery/drugs.
Here I found 7 recommendations: vitamin B6, vitamin C, bioflavonoids, N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), Coleus Forskohlii root extract (forskolin) with vitamin B6, Papaya enzyme (papain), cannabis.

Healing the optic nerve.

Dr. Glen feels that non-functioning optic nerve cells are living but dormant due to malnutrition. He believes they can come alive again if blood flow in capillaries serving the optic nerve is improved, along with better nutrients. If true, this is radically good news. There is no single section in the book where best healing practices are set forth, but the information is there, if you organize it. For improved optic nerve health I found 21 recommendations:
probiotics, germanium, magnesium, vitamin B3, vitamin B12, choline, n-acetyl-carnosine, ginkgo, salvia miltiorrhiza, hemp oil, spirulina, TMG- trimethylglycine, dandelion root, PQQ, Omega 3 oils, magnesium taurate, turmeric, ALC - acetyl-l-carnitine, AGE inhibitors, and acupressure.
I just took my crib sheet lists to a large vitamin department and the manager not only found all of the items, she recommended certain brands as best value. Still, I spent over $400 to get started!

Additional problems with this book (beyond being poorly organized).
1. The author has developed a general theory of healing, which lives primarily in his own head, employing terms that he invented. An appendix/glossary could have explained this, but does not exist.
2 The healing program relies heavily on supplements. This approach to health places special burdens on the liver. If that key organ is not functioning optimally, the supplement program may fail. This is not discussed.
3. In my case, a chronic bacterial infection -- Lyme disease -- is probably a factor in vision loss. The Lyme bacterium feeds on collagen, which is a primary constituent of eye structures and nerves. For me solving the glaucoma riddle means overcoming Ocular Lyme. This is not discussed in this book (see Healing Lyme by Stephen Buhner, second edition, for specific recommendations).

One final suggestion: read this book with someone else who has glaucoma, or a loved one. Divide the task of organizing the content and researching what is missing. It will be less daunting that way.

Hope does have healing power and this book at least offers hope, which conventional glaucoma treatment does not. You will have to work to make something of "Healing Glaucoma", but since the alternative is blindness, what can you lose from trying?

This is an excellent book, giving many options for helping people with glaucoma. Glaucoma is a very threatening disease, and the usual medications begin to be of no help as one's body reacts against them. These natural methods give real hope to those of us who have resigned ourselves to facing blindness.. It is so inspiring that the author himself had glaucoma and has conquered it.

A wealth of information - has helped me a lot.

I know things may be different for each patient, now for me the use of different vitamins made me feel depressed. So, I stop taking them for ten days to see what happens.

This was an encouraging and easy to read book. There is sooo much mainstream information that makes one fearful if they don't follow the standard protocol.

In Wales (Uk) the waiting times for reviews by consultants were, initial diagnosis, 8 months, laser therapy, one month, follow up 6 months!!! Instead of 3. Finding out after 3 months that laser therapy had done nothing from an optition visit. I decided I couldn't rely on the NHS to help me so started my own on line search for help, advice. I found various helpful articles but then found the book by Glen Swarthout which confirmed a lot of things I had already read and gave me the confidence to start treating myself with alternative therapies. I still have 6 weeks to wait to see the eye consultant who I know will want to start eye drops with detrimental effects that will not be closely monitored and not treat the underlying vascular problem of my NTG so I will have my visual field test compare results and ask him just to follow me through my Self healing programme.

OUTSTANDING!!!! A must buy for anyone facing a glaucoma
diagnosis and for those who wish to prevent glaucoma.
Thank you Dr. Swartwout for writing this book

I have found this book to be very enlightening on this subject and am trying to follow it because I have Glaucoma. I do not want to use prescription drops that have serious side effects. I believe in natural healing and that nutrition is basic to health.

Very helpful

The information in this book was very informative as I have glaucoma and am doing everything I can naturally to keep my pressure down. I have read many articles and books but this one sealed try deal. I liked it because it gave precise information that I could use and didn't have to go to another source to do more research. Thanks for all that great information. I got it and I understand it.

Very good information.

This book is very informative, which is what I NEEDED... Supplement information I needed to know about and how to take them, plus how they work in the body...with helping you to understand all this really helps the average person have hope in this alternative more natural method...

I purchased this book for my mother who has been suffering from glaucoma in her right eye for years. It was not until recently, when her O.D. failed to prescribe eye drops that would control her pain and fluid in her eye that she saw another O.D, who told her the eye drops that she had been taking for a year was full of steroids and antibiotics that actually contributed to more eye damage. Not wanting her to use any more damaging eye drops, I searched for books that could help. I am very pleased that I came across this one, it not only tells you what you should take for glaucoma, but why and specifically what part of the eye it helps heal. I was shocked to discover that steroids deplete the body of vitamin C, this made a lot of sense since my mother has had improvements with her pain by only taking vitamin C. This book not only proved to be useful for my mother but myself as well with the book's information on the many vitamins, minerals, and herbs that help heal the body. I highly recommend this book.

Excellent book! I bought this book because I suffer from a secondary form of open-angle glaucoma and I want to try and heal it holistically (or at least supplement my current meds with holistic ones). Dr. Swartwout's books are extremely concise and are well thought out! I would definitely recommend this book to people!