What exactly is glaucoma? in plain English please?

i just found out i have it...someone said it's an old ppls disease, but I'm only 14 and i have it...what the heck

You can get glaucoma at any age. Progressive loss of visual field. Peripheral field loss happens first. Tests for glaucoma are brief and painless. Your eye doctor will routinely measure your intraocular pressure (IOP) with a tonometer. There are several different types of tonometers and all work quickly and painlessly. The simple air-puff test is a reliable screening tool. This is to check to see how hard the eye is.

No, it's not an old people's disease. Glaucoma is increased pressure in the eyes because the mesh work that lets them drain is not working properly. What happens is the inner eye fills up with too much fluid and the pressure pushes on the optic nerve in the back of the eye, causing the area where it comes into the eye, called the optic disk or cup, to become larger. The optic nerve is a bundle of nerve fibers. The nerve fibers are only on the outside of the bundle. The inside of the nerve has no fibers. That is what is known as the blind spot. As the nerve becomes more damaged and the cup becomes larger, the blind spot also becomes larger and the eyesight gradually deteriorates. It's irreversible. Fortunately there are medications available to reduce eye pressures and prevent further damage. Have you had a visual field exam or OCT? These are painless tests to help determine if you have damage to your optic nerve. Just one more thing.... you can have elevated eye pressures and NOT have glaucoma. I was treated for it and it turns out my pressures were up due to chronic use of steroid eye drops for allergies and I never had glaucoma. The pressure did damage my left optic nerve but things are stable now and I just go in a few times a year to have my pressures checked.

It is more likely to occur in old people, but younger people can get it also. I have it. It is an eye disease in which the occular pressure (occular = eyeball) increases, putting pressure on the bundle of nerves leading from the back of the eye to the brain. If the pressure becomes severe, blindness will result.
Timoptic, or similar medications, are used to reduce this pressure.
However, these medications have not been around for very long. No one knows whether or not they work in the long run.
Good luck.

first of all, how did u know its glaucoma? have u seen a doctor?