Wet Macular Degeneration Treatment

Wet macular degeneration treatment is vitally important to the 10% of folks afflicted with this form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Wet AMD is the more severe form, as opposed to dry AMD. While there are currently no treatments for dry AMD, some do exist for wet AMD.

Promising Tufts University Study

Recently, a study at Tufts University in Massachusetts revealed the possibility of more effective AMD treatments. Using mice, the study revealed how AMD damaged eyes were repaired by pyridoxalphosphate-6-azophenyl-2',4'-disulfonic acid (PPADS).

Wet macular degeneration occurs when new blood vessels begin to grow under the macula, which eventually leak blood and fluid, damaging the retina.

This new research shows that PPADS may help inhibit the growth of these new blood vessels.

As these studies continue, researchers hope to eventually produce eye drops that would consist of something more refined than PPADS so that patients would have no need to endure painful eye injections.

Laser Therapy

Laser therapy is another wet macular degeneration treatment patients can turn to, but it’s only effective in around 10-20% of all cases.

It’s usually necessary to undergo multiple laser treatments and further vision loss may be noticed as the treatment ends up creating scar tissue. This scar tissue can then be seen as blind spots.

However, doing nothing ends up resulting in more vision loss as the disease progresses and the laser therapy is done to help stop the leakage caused from the new blood vessel growth on the macula.

Pharmaceuticals

Another way folks try to prevent the leaky blood vessel growth is through medications such as Macugen, Eylea, and Lucentis.

Patients take Eylea once every two months. Lucentis is taken once a month or every three months, depending on your exact condition. Macugen is administered every six weeks.

Photodynamic Therapy (PDT)

This is another laser approach to treating the blood vessel growth, but through non-heat laser therapy, where Visudyne is injected into the arm and then flowed through the eye’s blood vessels.

The resulting chemical reaction helps to seal the blood vessels that are leaking blood and fluid.

Nutrition

The famous National Eye Institute study released in 2001 (and a second one in 2006) called Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) revealed how taking a specific vitamin and antioxidant formula of copper, zinc, beta-carotene, Vitamins C & E, Omega-3, and lutein/zeaxanthin helps to decrease the progression of macular degeneration.

Technology as a Wet Macular Degeneration Treatment

Rarely is this looked at as a “treatment”, but in essence, it really is. Like you, I also live with low vision. Rather than AMD, mine is caused by Angioid streaks, which is a rare genetic form of macular degeneration.

My point is that I’ve learned to deal with my disease by mastering the technology we all have at our disposal.

It’s possible to live an independent lifestyle despite your low vision. Through the use of talking technology, medication bottle label readers, food label readers, computer screen readers and magnifiers, etc, you and I can live empowering lives.

If you’d like to learn more about all the technology available to make your life easier, fill out the form below and I’ll send it right out to you.