Our caring team of Mayo Clinic experts can help you with your wet macular degeneration-related health concerns Start Here.
Treatments are available that may help slow disease progression, preserve existing vision and, if started early enough, recover some lost vision. Medications may help stop the growth of new blood vessels by blocking the effects of growth signals the body sends to generate new blood vessels.
These drugs are considered the first line treatment for all stages of wet macular degeneration. Your doctor injects these medications into the affected eye. You may need injections every four to six weeks to maintain the beneficial effect of the medication.
In some instances, you may partially recover vision as the blood vessels shrink and the fluid under the retina absorbs, allowing some vision gain. Possible risks of eye injections include conjunctival hemorrhage, increased eye pressure, infection, retinal detachment and eye inflammation.
Photodynamic therapy. This procedure is very occasionally used to treat abnormal blood vessels at the center of your macula. During photodynamic therapy, your doctor injects a drug called verteporfin Visudyne into a vein in your arm, which travels to blood vessels in your eye.
Your doctor shines a focused light from a special laser to the abnormal blood vessels in your eye. This activates the drug, causing the abnormal blood vessels to close, which stops the leakage. Photodynamic therapy may improve your vision and reduce the rate of vision loss. You may need repeated treatments over time, as the treated blood vessels may reopen.
After photodynamic therapy, you'll need to avoid direct sunlight and bright lights until the drug has cleared your body, which may take a few days. During photocoagulation therapy, your doctor uses a high-energy laser beam to seal abnormal blood vessels under the macula. The laser causes scarring that can create a blind spot, but the procedure is used to stop the vessels from bleeding with the aim of minimizing further damage to the macula.
Even with this treatment, blood vessels may regrow, requiring further treatment. Few people who have wet macular degeneration are candidates for this treatment. It generally isn't an option if you have abnormal blood vessels directly under the center of the macula. Also, the more damaged your macula is, the lower the likelihood of success.
Explore Mayo Clinic studies testing new treatments, interventions and tests as a means to prevent, detect, treat or manage this condition. Even after receiving a diagnosis of wet macular degeneration, you can take steps that may help slow vision loss. In fact, nearly everyone over age 50 has at least one small drusen. Standard screening tests include the visual acuity exam the letter chart with an E at the top and an Amsler grid, which looks like graph paper.
The Amsler grid is used to check whether lines look wavy or distorted, or whether areas of the visual field are missing. Most of the advanced diagnostics for studying the presence or progression of macular degeneration involve making images of the fundus the inside back of the eyeball and the retina. The technology is constantly being updated, but currently includes:. A yellow dye called fluorescein is injected into a vein in the arm or hand. Sequential photographs are taken of the eye, using a camera that sits on a table the person sits in front of it.
The images show blood flow and possible leakage wet AMD in the retina and choroid. They'll use a magnifying glass with a light to look at the back of your eyes and check your vision.
They may put drops in your eyes to make it easier for them to spot any problems. These can make your vision blurry for a few hours. This is usually only necessary if there's a possibility you'll need to start treatment quickly. For example, a bright shaft of sunlight streaming in through a window may cause everything outside the glare to "black out. You may find that you need brighter light levels for reading, cooking and performing day-to-day tasks.
An inability to properly judge distances can also make walking harder, potentially leading to missteps and falls. If you notice a change in your central vision, you should have your eyes checked by an ophthalmologist.
This type of doctor specializes in the:. To help diagnose macular degeneration, an ophthalmologist or optometrist will perform a comprehensive eye exam that may include the following tests:. Eye care Professionals use autofluorescence photos to study the retina and measure the progression of geographic atrophy in patients with advanced, dry AMD.
Doctors can use this technique to monitor the retinal pigment epithelium RPE , the deepest layer of the retina:. To view the back of your retina, the doctor dilates the pupils with eye drops. Dilation allows the doctor to study the retina for signs of disease and to determine if there is optic nerve damage. After dilating the pupil, the doctor aims a bright beam of light into the eye to check for problems in these parts of the eye:.
This test measures your sight from various distances. After dilating the pupil, the doctor focuses light through the cornea, pupil, and lens. He or she uses a customized camera to photograph the back of the eye to look for signs of disease in the:. Fundus photography helps the doctor measure changes between visits.
If your doctor suspects that you may have the wet type of AMD, he or she may conduct this test to detect leaking blood vessels. The doctor injects fluorescent dye into your arm and traces it through the blood vessels in the retina, where the appearance of fluorescent patches can reveal leakage.
OCT is a noninvasive technique to image the retina. OCT produces cross-sectional images of the retina so that the different layers and their thicknesses can be measured.
When your doctor suspects advanced dry AMD, this technique can identify regions of the retina that are thinning, indicating the presence of geographic atrophy. Doctors also routinely use this test to assess the retina's response to various treatments. This test measures the pressure inside the eye.
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