Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) Dry and Wet Cause for Treatment with Lifestyle Risk Factors
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is an eye disease that increasingly and painlessly causes destruction of your sharp, central vision. As a result, your ability to see objects clearly and in fine detail is diminished. Eventually it can affect your performance in everyday tasks, such as reading and driving.
AMD can progress slowly, wherein your vision changes may be hardly noticed, or faster, with a potential vision loss in both eyes. AMD is diagnoed as dry and wet forms of the disease.
Dry form AMD occurs when the light-sensitive cells in your macula slowly break down, gradually blurring your central vision. As your condition worsens, you may see a blurred spot in your center vision, eventually this vision lost.
Two noticeable signs of dry AMD are difficulty recognizing faces and the need for more light to read or do other common tasks. It typically affects both eyes, but vision can be lost in just one eye.
One of the earliest signs of dry AMD is drusen. Drusen are yellow deposits under your retina, and can be detect during a comprehensive dilated eye exam. Drusen is not usually the cause vision loss, and it is presently unclear the connection between drusen and AMD. What is known is increased size or number of drusen raises the risk of developing either form of age related macular degeneration.
Dry AMD has three stages:
- Early is characterized by either several small drusen or a few medium-sized drusen, and no vision loss.
- Intermediate is either many medium-sized drusen or one or more large drusen, and some experience a blurred spot in their center of their vision.
- Advanced dry AMD sufferers have blurred central vision.
Advanced stage cases may experience:
- difficulty reading
- difficulty recognizing faces
- supporting tissue breakdown
- breakdown of light-sensitive cells
- blurred spot gets bigger and darker over time
If you have this vision loss in only one eye, you may still be able to see clearly enough to drive, read, and see fine details because of your other eye’s compensation.
Wet AMD occurs when abnormal blood vessels behind the retina start to grow under the macula. An early symptom of this form is when straight lines appear crooked or wavy.
With wet AMD, loss of central vision can occur quickly. It is also known as advanced AMD and does not have stages like dry.
Treatment for wet AMD:
- laser surgery
- photodynamic therapy
- injections into the eye
None of these treatments is a cure for wet AMD. The disease and loss of vision may progress despite treatment.
A study suggested treatment for intermediate dry AMD in one or both eyes, or advanced dry or wet AMD in only one eye is taking a specific high-dose formulation of antioxidants and zinc. The specific daily amounts of antioxidants and zinc used by the study were:
- 400 IU of vitamin E
- 500 milligrams of vitamin C
- 80 milligrams of zinc as zinc oxide
- two milligrams of copper as cupric oxide
- 15 milligrams of beta-carotene (25,000 IU of vitamin A)
This treatment can delay and possibly prevent intermediate AMD from progressing to the advanced stage. Once dry AMD reaches the advanced stage, no form of treatment can prevent vision loss. Also, this high-dose treatment formulation was not found to be beneficial to those in early stage of dry AMD.
The greatest risk factor for age-related macular degeneration is age. Other risk factors include:
- obesity
- smoking
- family history
- gender ~ women appear to be at greatest risk
- race ~ whites more likely than African Americans
Your lifestyle can play a role in reducing your risk of developing AMD and some risk reduction factors are:
- exercise
- don’t smoke
- maintain healthy weight
- maintain normal blood pressure
- eat a healthy diet high in green leafy vegetables and fish
If you notice any changes to your vision, contact your eye care professional immediately for a comprehensive dilated eye exam. 90% of all AMD cases have the dry type, and the cause is still unknown.
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