Age-related macular degeneration — abbreviated as AMD — is a disease of the retina, the light-sensitive portion of your eye. The retina is located at the back of the eye, and the macula is a small area near the very center. Your macula is responsible for your central vision.
In AMD, the macula loses its ability to detect light, resulting in a partial or total loss of central vision. People with late-stage AMD are unable to see objects straight in front of them, making it difficult to perform many activities, like using a computer, reading, driving, or recognizing faces.
AMD typically causes no symptoms until vision begins to fade. Having routine eye exams, especially over age 50, is important for catching AMD as early as possible.
There are 2 forms of AMD: dry and wet. Dry is when there are structure changes to the macula tissue which often cause changes and distortion to vision but no active bleeding. Wet is when there is new blood vessels that form and start leaking blood in deeper layers of the retina in and around the macula. Typically the vision is worse with this and it requires medication (usually injections) to get the bleeding to stop. The goal isn’t to reverse damage that already has happened, it’s to stabilize and lock in the vision level that you’re currently at right then.
Age is the biggest risk factor for AMD, followed by having a family history of AMD. You’re also at greater risk of developing AMD if you are:
Yes! There are several modifiable lifestyle choices that you can choose to reduce risk. Your eyes are connected to the rest of your body, so generally speaking, things that you do to keep your whole body healthy will help with eye health too! Quitting smoking, exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy weight, and controlling your blood pressure and your cholesterol are important lifestyle changes that are recommended. You should also wear sunglasses that protect you from UVA and UVB rays and use blue light protection when operating a computer or your cell phone.
Triple cartenoid eye vitamins (Lutein, Zeazanthin and Meso-Zeazanthin in a 10-10-2mg ratio) will help slow the progression of AMD. This is where the lifemeter technology comes in–it can reliably and consistently measure your anti-oxidant level in your skin, which correlates to your macula in the back of your eye! So you can see where you’re at as a baseline and then see the improvement of the supplements over time.
One of the most important things you can do is have regular eye exams to monitor the health of your retina.
There are multiple ways that we can look for and diagnose AMD for patients. One of the most common is just looking at the retina tissue and noticing specific changes that are classic in the macula area. We can see these on an eye exam with a focusing lens at the slit lamp in the exam room. We also use retinal photos to help document if there are structural changes for any part of the retina so we can compare even more closely and precisely over time.
What do we see more specifically? Drusen are structural changes that indicate AMD changes in the tissue are happening underneath the top layer of the retina. In order to see other layers of the retina we use a different technology that’s called OCT (optical coherence tomography) that can look at all 10 layers of the retinal tissue and separate them out. The results are instant so we can review them on the same day as they are captured. That helps determine if the disease is progressing or is stable.
It depends on if you have the dry or wet form and it depends on what the macular tissue structure looks like for each eye and what the vision level is currently measuring in the office.
Triple carotenoid eye vitamins (Lutein, Zeazanthin and Meso-Zeazanthin in a 10-10-2mg ratio) will help slow the progression of AMD for dry and wet forms. There are over 30 peer reviewed journal articles related to this, so the evidence is clear that this is one of the best ways that we can treat it in addition to lifestyle modifications listed above. We stock this in our office purely for the convenience of patients! We’ll explain more at your appointment in the office for how exactly this impacts it.
If you have the wet form of AMD that will require injections (sometimes laser-although that isn’t used nearly as much anymore) with a retinal specialist in addition to the dry AMD treatment recommendations. We’ll get you set up with a referral as needed for that if that situation applies to you.
The frustrating part of this is that right now we don’t have all of the answers because we don’t fully understand the mechanism of action for this entire disease process.
The exciting part? There are a multitude of clinical trials throughout the world happening constantly with several research groups trying to work on figuring out even better ways to detect and treat this progressive eye disease process. We will stay on top of the research as it comes out and let you know if there is something that could apply to your individual situation.
So right now: we treat what we can see and know about where you are at and try to stabilize your vision so you can see as well as possible for as long as possible during your life!
Are you ready to up-level your eye care experience? Reach out to Advanced Eye Care Professionals for more information about our services. We’re happy to help!
