Macular degeneration is a progressive deterioration of the macula, the part of your retina responsible for sharply seeing details. Macular degeneration may make reading, driving and recognising faces difficult but typically leaves enough peripheral vision intact to allow independent living.

Dry macular degeneration occurs as the macula becomes thinner and yellow-tinged protein deposits known as drusen accumulate. Unfortunately, no effective treatments exist to address this stage of the disease.

Dry Macular Degeneration

Macular degeneration is an eye disease that robs you of central vision – crucial for reading and driving. This condition occurs when your retina’s macula stops working as intended – the small area located at the back of your eye that controls reading and driving. This section of your retina converts light into nerve signals that travel down your optic nerve to your brain, providing central vision – which allows you to perceive details in objects right in front of you. If you have advanced AMD, your central vision may become clouded and there may be a dark spot in the middle of your field of view. Straight lines may appear wavy or colors faded. Peripheral (side) vision usually is unaffected; macular degeneration only becomes blindness-causing if its progressing and reaching late stages.

AMD comes in two forms, dry and wet. Dry AMD is by far the more prevalent form, typically occurring when tissue of the macula becomes thinner with age and small protein deposits called drusen form underneath your retina, gradually blocking off central vision. Although no pain may be felt by affected individuals initially, symptoms often only become evident as we age: blurry central vision spots or distortion in straight lines may become noticeable over time. You can learn if you have early stage dry AMD through having a comprehensive, dilated eye exam with your physician.

Wet macular degeneration (WMD) is less prevalent but more serious. In wet AMD, abnormal blood vessels form under the retina and leak fluid and blood into the macula, damaging its tissues and potentially leading to rapid loss of central vision.

Treatment for wet macular degeneration can be highly successful at slowing its progress. Medication known as anti-VEGF agents are administered via injection and designed to combat vascular endothelial growth factor, which spurs abnormal blood vessel formation associated with wet macular degeneration.

Wet macular degeneration can often be treated effectively with medications and laser therapy, helping stabilize visual outcomes and in some cases even improve them. Although these treatments cannot restore lost vision directly, low vision aids such as hand-held magnifying lenses or tape-recorded books or magazines may provide support as you adjust to loss of central vision – such as tape-recorded books with audio books on taper, taped playing cards with large print, scales that measure central vision loss more closely, talking clocks or watches are also useful in helping adapting to loss of central vision loss: such devices as tape-recorded books with audio recordings of books/magazines/scales etc.

Early Stages

Dry macular degeneration often leaves no symptoms in its early stages; however, the condition is identified by yellow deposits called drusen under the retina that do not result in vision loss; they merely signal that an individual may eventually progress to advanced AMD.

As patients enter the intermediate stage, they will notice that their central vision has begun to blur due to cell breakdown in their macula causing blurring and darkness in central vision. They may need additional lighting during daily activities or find it hard to adapt to low light environments or experience distortion of geometric shapes.

An annual eye exam is the best way to detect macular degeneration early and intermediate stages. Your eye doctor will examine your vision using an Amsler grid, looking for patterns of straight lines to measure central vision; any deviation or missing lines could indicate macular degeneration.

If you are at risk for advanced macular degeneration, your physician may inject dye into a vein in your arm and take photographs as the dye travels through your blood vessels – an imaging technique known as angiography that offers more accurate images than OCT and allows physicians to detect new blood vessels that leak fluid or blood into the retina.

Wet macular degeneration occurs when abnormal blood vessels grow under the macula and begin leaking fluid and blood, shifting its position out of alignment and potentially leading to rapid vision loss. Although less commonly seen than its dry counterpart, Wet AMD can result in rapid vision loss – and may eventually lead to blindness if left untreated. One effective treatment option for Wet AMD involves injecting drugs directly into one’s eye in order to block certain blood vessels from growing underneath it and thus reduce leakage by blocking certain ones from growing further under its surface.

Intermediate Stages

At this stage, damage to your macula intensifies and you may begin noticing symptoms, including central vision becoming blurry and straight objects such as telephone poles or venetian blinds appearing wavy or missing. While macular degeneration usually doesn’t lead to complete loss of vision as its periphery remains intact; you may experience trouble reading or driving and colors may look less vivid; if untreated it could rapidly progress into more advanced stages called wet macular degeneration and ultimately result in significant vision loss.

The wet form of macular degeneration occurs when abnormal blood vessels form beneath the retina and leak blood and fluid into the macula, leading to severe vision loss in 90% of cases of this condition. Although wet AMD is less prevalent than its dry counterpart, severe vision loss occurs more frequently with wet AMD.

As soon as a patient shows signs of wet macular degeneration, their doctor will perform several tests to ascertain if it is damaging vision. An Amsler grid test provides an easy way for doctors to check if macular degeneration is compromising vision – any irregularities in its straight lines could indicate macular degeneration. OCT (optical coherence tomography) and fluorescein angiography (florescein angiogram) may also aid diagnosis; during these processes dye is injected into an arm vein then digital images obtained of retinal structures when passing through eye, as digital images pass by in each eye revealing leaky blood vessels in digital images allowing doctors to treat vision with photodynamic therapy which could potentially improve visual impairment in some cases.

Wet macular degeneration can be reduced or prevented altogether by taking high doses of antioxidants, zinc and vitamins C and E from the Age-Related Eye Disease Study regimen. Studies performed by this research group revealed that taking this combination significantly decreased the risk of progressing to advanced stages of wet macular disease and improved their visual acuity; additionally adding foods rich in lutein and zeaxanthin into one’s diet can further lower this risk.

Late Stages

Macular degeneration progresses into its final stage when the macula begins to degenerate completely, leading to permanent loss of central vision and creating permanent difficulties with reading, driving and seeing fine detail. It can cause difficulties reading, driving and seeing fine detail and often manifests with distortion of straight lines and blurry or fuzzy vision; also known as exudative macular degeneration; abnormal blood vessels which form underneath the retina can leak fluid or blood into the eye, leading to blurry or distorted vision as a result of fluid accumulation within it all as neovascular or exudative macular degeneration due to abnormal blood vessels under retina which cause leakage of fluid or blood into eye, leading to distortion of straight lines as well as blurry or fuzzy vision resulting in all.

While advanced macular degeneration cannot be treated, it is still vitally important to get a complete dilated eye exam annually, even if no symptoms of macular degeneration exist. An ophthalmologist will be able to detect early changes to your macula with various tests; an Amsler grid chart may help them spot distortions in central vision. Other tests they may perform include optical coherence tomography or fundus fluorescein angiography where harmless orange-red dye is injected directly into blood vessels in retina of eyes in which an ophthalmologist then views and sees any areas of leakage from these blood vessels that is then visible by viewing retina blood vessels within their retinal blood vessels by injecting harmless orange-red dye into arm and travelling directly to blood vessels located there so ophthalmologists can then view any areas where leakage exists in retina blood vessels of your eye where leakage may exist in eyes with great precision ophthalmologist!

These new blood vessels may form even without any prior history of dry macular degeneration. About 10% of cases of macular degeneration involve wet AMD. This form is more severe than dry AMD and can be caused by certain medications or health problems; untreated, it can quickly lead to vision loss.

Photodynamic therapy, commonly used to treat wet macular degeneration, has proven its efficacy by stabilizing vision in over 95% of eyes and even improving it for some individuals. A prescription medication is administered directly into the eye where it binds abnormal blood vessels that leak and cause loss of vision; several studies have confirmed its ability to slow disease progression while in some instances even leading to improved vision.