Hanuveda
The Science of Ayurvedic Healing
The Science of Ayurvedic Healing
Everyday Guidance for Protecting Your Vision
Continue your glaucoma treatment regularly:
Glaucoma can gradually damage the optic nerve without causing noticeable symptoms. Regularly prescribed glaucoma drops help control eye pressure and protect the vision you still have. Ayurveda can be used alongside conventional glaucoma care, but any change to your prescribed eye drops should be made only in consultation with your ophthalmologist.
Know the warning signs of an eye emergency:
Sudden severe eye pain, blurred vision, redness, colored haloes around lights, headache or nausea can indicate acute angle-closure glaucoma. This is an eye emergency and requires immediate medical attention. Prompt treatment can help prevent serious and permanent vision loss.
Use steroid eye drops only under medical supervision:
Steroid-containing eye drops can increase eye pressure and, with prolonged or unsupervised use, may contribute to steroid-induced glaucoma. If you or your child regularly use steroid eye drops, creams, inhalers or leftover medicines for eye symptoms, ask an eye specialist whether an eye-pressure check is needed. Do not stop prescribed oral or systemic steroids suddenly; these may need to be reduced gradually under medical supervision.
Modify certain exercises and yoga practices:
Some activities can temporarily increase eye pressure, particularly headstands, shoulder stands, heavy lifting with breath-holding and other prolonged inverted positions. If you have glaucoma, inform your yoga instructor so that suitable modifications can be made. Gentle, appropriately adapted practices can help you stay active while taking your eye health into consideration.
Early Glaucoma Care Matters- Glaucoma is often silent in its early stages, but the vision loss can be permanent. Early detection, regular monitoring and consistent treatment are essential to protect remaining vision.
Outcome of the research: A randomized study in primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) evaluated Punarnavashtaka Kwatha and Gokshuradi Guggulu alongside conventional glaucoma treatment. The study assessed symptoms such as blurred vision, dark adaptation and visual-field changes. Both groups showed improvement, with greater improvement reported in the group receiving the Ayurvedic preparations.
The study supports exploring these Ayurvedic therapies as a complement to conventional glaucoma care, rather than as a replacement for pressure-lowering treatment.
Outcome of the research: A clinical study involving 79 patients with Kaphaja Adhimantha compared Triphaladi Varti, Nayanamrita Lauha, their combination, and a placebo eye drop. Researchers assessed vision, eye pressure, visual fields and other symptoms such as heaviness of the head and coloured haloes.
Individual case reports have also described Ayurvedic therapies such as Deepana, Pachana, Virechana, Pindi, Jalaukavacharana, Aschyotana and Tarpana alongside conventional glaucoma treatment.
In Ayurveda, Adhimantha is a classical eye disorder described by Sushruta —conditions affecting the whole eye. The name refers to severe, churning or squeezing pain in the eye, sometimes extending to the head.
Classical descriptions include eye pain, redness, watering, heaviness of the head, coloured haloes around lights and reduced peripheral vision. Ayurvedic texts describe Adhimantha as a possible progression of untreated or improperly managed Abhishyanda, an inflammatory eye condition. The classical teaching emphasizes that if such eye disorders are neglected, they may eventually affect vision and lead to blindness.
The Dosha Model
Ayurveda views Adhimantha as involving all three doshas, with Pitta and Rakta(imbalance of the blood tissue) considered particularly important in many Ayurvedic interpretations.
Alochaka Pitta — the Pitta principle associated with the eyes and visual perception, is considered central to eye function.
Prana Vayu and Vyana Vayu — some modern Ayurvedic authors have proposed that disturbances in these Vata subtypes may relate to the mechanical and vascular aspects of optic nerve damage.
The connection between these Vata concepts and optic nerve damage is a modern Ayurvedic interpretation, developed in recent decades.
Stage 0 — Measure First, Always
Glaucoma can progress without symptoms, so treatment should never be based on symptoms alone. A complete eye assessment is needed before starting any programme.
Essential assessment includes:
Check the Risk Factors
We also review steroid use, diabetes, blood pressure, sleep apnoea, migraine/vascular factors, medications and family history. First-degree relatives may require regular glaucoma screening.
Ayurvedic Assessment
The Ayurvedic assessment considers Prakriti, Vikriti and Agni, along with the classical Vataja, Pittaja, Kaphaja and Raktaja Adhimantha patterns.
Protecting Your Glaucoma Treatment
Raktamokshana/Jalaukavacharana requires careful medical assessment, particularly when taking blood thinners.
Netra Kriyakalpa should be avoided after recent eye surgery, during active eye infection, or around a glaucoma filtering-surgery site unless cleared by the treating ophthalmologist. Tarpana over a trabeculectomy bleb should only be done with the surgeon’s approval.
Stage 1 — Nidana Parivarjana and systemic preparation
Stage 2 — Netra Kriyakalpa
Ayurveda can play a supportive role in maintaining eye health and overall wellbeing, while prescribed glaucoma drops remain essential for controlling intraocular pressure.
Stage 3 — Shirodhara, Nasya and systemic therapy
Stage 4 — Shamana and Rasayana
Cautions
Stage 5 — Lifestyle, adherence and family screening
The Honest Goal
In glaucoma, stability is success. Glaucoma damage that has already occurred cannot usually be reversed. The main goal of treatment is therefore to protect the vision you still have and prevent further damage.
A successful long-term outcome means that your visual fields, optic nerve and eye pressure remain stable over time—ideally keeping your vision today much the same many years from now.
Outcomes we consider reasonable to expect
Outcomes we do not claim
Avoidance of laser or surgery where your ophthalmologist recommends them.
Superiority over any conventional treatment. No trial has tested this, and the published Ayurvedic trials were adjunctive.
A published success rate. In a disease assessed over years, with irreversible damage and no felt symptoms, any short-term success figure is uninterpretable.
Realistic Timeline
No. Glaucoma damages the optic nerve, and those cells do not regenerate — vision lost to glaucoma is gone in any system of medicine. What can be achieved is stopping further loss, and the only intervention proven to do that is lowering eye pressure. Our role is to support that, not replace it.
No, and this is the most important answer on the page. Every published Ayurvedic glaucoma trial gave the treatment alongside conventional drops — including the 91-patient randomised study of Chakshushya Rasayana, which was explicitly an adjuvant trial with beta-blocker drops. Nothing in that literature supports substitution. Each month without pressure control costs visual field permanently, and you will not feel it going.
That is normal-tension glaucoma, and it is more common than people expect. The optic nerve is damaged at pressures within the statistically normal range. Treatment is still pressure lowering — the target is simply lower. Other factors matter more in this form: blood pressure dropping too low at night, sleep apnoea, and vascular problems. Worth discussing your night-time blood pressure with your physician if you take antihypertensives in the evening.
Possibly a serious one — please have your eye pressure checked. Steroid eye drops available without prescription are a major and preventable cause of blindness in India. Around a third of people show a moderate pressure rise on steroids and 4–6% a large one, typically within three to six weeks. In one Indian series of steroid-induced glaucoma, nearly 37% of patients were already blind in both eyes when they presented.
Yes, enough to get their eye pressure checked regularly. Childhood allergic eye disease is chronic, most affected children use corticosteroids at some point, and unmonitored use causes glaucoma. One study found over 3% of children had steroid-induced glaucoma and over 15% were using topical steroids with no prescription at all. Children are also more likely than adults to be strong steroid responders. Do not stop a prescribed steroid abruptly — speak to the treating doctor — but do get the pressure monitored.
Yes — this may be the most valuable thing on the page for you. Glaucoma runs in families and first-degree relatives carry substantially raised risk. Get intraocular pressure, optic discs and visual fields checked, and repeat periodically. Given that around 90% of glaucoma in India is undiagnosed and that damage is irreversible, being tested before you have symptoms is the only way to keep your full sight.
Patients seeking Ayurvedic treatment in India can avail of services tailored to their medical history, diagnosis, and prior treatments.
Traveling patients can be asked for past MRI/CT/X-ray reports, details about the diagnosis, history of the ongoing treatment, and current medications by the team beforehand.
During treatment, the team members can arrange the doctor’s consultation, planning of treatments, conduct the therapy sessions, organize the accommodation, and after-treatment follow-up to execute your treatment plan.
Patients seeking Ayurvedic treatment in India can avail of services tailored to their medical history, diagnosis, and prior treatments.
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