David Koch has spoken candidly about a disease that almost saw him lose his eyesight.
The Sunrise co-host regularly gets his eyes checked and wears glasses and one day three years ago went in for another appointment.
He was then told by the optometrist that he had glaucoma – an eye disease where vision is lost due to damage to the optic nerve.
“It was a real revelation and a bit scary to think that if this optometrist hadn’t picked it up, it would have kept getting worse and worse,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“We do lots of reading on Sunrise, a fair bit off the autocue and I hadn’t noticed a difference over the years.
“If it hadn’t been treated for another year or two it would have been really hard to stabilise and it would have gone over the tipping point.”
Kochie spoke about the fear he had saying there were many things he didn’t want to miss out on due to losing his eyesight.
He explained that being a grandfather to eight children and his youngest daughter getting married were things he wanted to be present for to see.
The TV presenter urged everyone to go out and get their eyes checked, as glaucoma affects almost 300,000 Aussies, with many cases going undiagnosed.
Kochie treats his glaucoma with laser treatments and eye drops.
Images: Instagram
This article first appeared on OverSixty.