Why should your Optic Nerve be examined?
For these reasons, examination of the optic nerve and its ability to transmit the visual message is an essential part of the examination for glaucoma. By determining whether or not the optic nerve has been damaged and whether the damage is getting worse, your eye doctor can diagnose glaucoma or determine whether it is progressively deteriorating.

How is the Optic Nerve examined?
In most patients, the optic nerve can be readily examined. It can be seen directly inside the eye with an instrument called the ophthalmoscope. Although many different diseases affect the optic nerve, the damage from glaucoma has a characteristic appearance that permits your ophthalmologist to recognise whether glaucoma is present. The optic nerve exits directly through the back of the eye. The nerve is made up of about one million fibres which originate in nerve cells located in the retina, the light sensitive film coating the inside of the eye. When looking into the eye, the optic nerve is seen on end (optic nerve head), and the nerve fibres are seen to fan out onto the retina.

The optic nerve fibres as seen to fan out onto the retina from the optic nerve head.The pattern looks like a fingerprint.