Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a condition that often affects the elderly. This is a degeneration of the macula, or a small part of the retina. While this is only a small portion of your eye, it is responsible for helping you view fine details like thin lines and faraway shapes. This is a common condition that affects many people, but there are certain people that are more susceptible to this condition.
Types and Causes
There are two types of macular degeneration. The most common is the dry type. This affects about 90 percent of those with AMD. It’s also the less severe of the two. There will often be small yellow and white deposits around the macula that will make it much harder for you to see. The macula may also stop working if these deposits become too great, but this is uncommon.
Wet AMD is much worse than dry AMD, and it may cause severe damage to your central vision. This is caused when blood vessels begin growing abnormally underneath the retina. These blood vessels have a propensity to burst. This will cause blood to fill the macula that can lead to severe macula damage. Wet AMD is also much faster and more noticeable than dry AMD.
Symptoms
The symptoms of both dry and wet AMD are similar, but there are some differences that you should be aware of. Dry AMD often causes fine lines and details to become blurry. You may also require more light to see close objects, and colors become hazy and less vivid. Some people also experience difficulties recognizing other people’s facial features, and your central vision might have a blurry or blank spot.
Wet AMD will cause distortions in your vision. Straight lines and shapes will look crooked and bent. There are often dark gray spots peppering your vision, and central vision will suffer. You may also notice that the size of objects differs depending on what eye you are using. Colors will dim and lose their brightness and vividness.
Risk Factors
Age is a common factor that will cause wear and damage to your macula, but there are other risk factors that increase the likelihood of you experiencing AMD. Excessive free radicals in the body will cause damage to many cells, but there are some people that are more sensitive to their effects. About 30 percent of people are suspected of having this sensitivity that increases the likelihood of them experiencing AMD. You can reduce this by eating healthy foods that reduce free radicals.
People who are prone to inflammation, a family history of AMD or a history of high blood pressure are more prone to experiencing this condition. You can eat foods that help with inflammation to help with this.
Smoking is another risk factor because it causes massive damage to the body, raises blood pressure and introduces many free radicals into the body. While it’s nearly impossible to reverse the damage from smoking, you can start the process today by quitting.
Treatment
You should visit an ophthalmology clinic as soon as possible so that the doctors can treat your AMD. While there isn’t a proven treatment yet for dry AMD, there are many things that can be done to reduce the damage. The doctors will often prescribe certain multi-vitamins and lifestyle changes to help your eyes.
Wet AMD has several treatment methods that involve certain medications and treatment. These have been proven to help your vision, but you might need several sessions of treatment until the effects are noticeable.
Conclusion
AMD is a very common condition that causes a loss of vision, but not total blindness. If you need help with your AMD, or if you want more information, then don’t hesitate to contact us to find out more. We have helped many people with the AMD, and we can help also help you.