If you have just been told you have ARMD in?!
Question: the left eye, is it just a matter of time before it developes in the right one.
Answers: the left eye, is it just a matter of time before it developes in the right one.
You might give a little more information. Age, race, sex. Other medical problems such as Diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, endocrine problems.
This note may be a long walk....
We look at macular degeneration as a specific disease, but it might be better to look at it more as a set of responses by the retina to different types of insults that are dependent on the tissue itself.
You might look at it sort of in this way. We can take a magnifying lens, a magnifying glass and go outside, focus the sun on some leaves or paper or twigs, and start a fire.
There's about 4 or 5 square inches of glass, focusing a little bit of sunlight to a point, and there's enough energy there to cause a fire to start. This can actually be done with ice, shaped like a lens, focus the sun and start a fire with water!
In the eye, we have this lens system, made up of the cornea and the lens itself. These lenses focus light to a spot in the back of the eye, to the center of the retina, the macula. Then after 60 years or so we're surprised that we've cooked the thing.
Why didn't we cook it when we were younger? Well, the choroidal vessels beneath the macula have a very high blood flow. The capillaries themselves have a very high bore or thin walls. Lots of blood passes through there, the most per unit of tissue weight in the entire body. This acts as a cooler for all that radiant energy. When we're young, we whisk away the energy and the toxic radical molecules or atoms that are formed, before they damage the tissues.
But as we get older, our pipes get rusty. We get atherosclerosis, or arteriosclerosis and the blood flows slower, the vessel walls get thicker, less compliant, and those toxic atoms or molecules stick around instead of a nanosecond, they stick around for a thousandth of a second and damage occurs to the pigment cells or the membranes in the cells, or the DNA or the molecular machinery. That damage, causes problems.
So we try and fix it. It one of the problems is that the membranes between the vessel layer and the retina gets thicker or less permeable, the retina, the outer portion of the retina doesn't get enough oxygen or other factor, and it complains. One way it complains is by producing a messenger that screams it's not getting enough oxygen, or getting rid of CO2, or it's acid/base balance is off, or ?
One messenger is the Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor or VEGF molecules which are numbered partially by the number of amino acids that they contain or that form them. Eventually they cleave and form the 110 molecule which when it trickles down through the pigment into the choroid, causes growth of the vessels towards the retina. And these new blood vessels leak and bleed. This wet form causes a rapid or acute change in vision.
Now days we inject into the eye the Anti-VEGF drugs like Lucentis or Avastin, or Macugen. Or we try to limit the inflammation by using steroids like Decadron, or we use Photo Dynamic therapy (PDT) which binds to the new vessels, then laser them with a special wave length of light so only those vessels atrophy.
Or, we do a combination of therapies.
We've tried going beneath the retina and removing those new membranes surgically. In some diseases such as POHS or histoplasmosis, it can help. Some grow back, some don't. In macular degeneration, the visual outcomes aren't so hot, so we don't do it for that anymore.
If you Do have a macular degeneration, one eye usually follows the other eye within 5 years or so. But with the newer therapies, things are changing so rapidly, by ten years from now who knows what new stuff will be out there for treating these diseases.
If the choroid just clots off and atrophies, sort of in little round coin-like lesions, that's the 'dry' type. We're trying to change the genetics of those cells, those vessels so they don't do that, or if they do, do it later, or slower.
So it's hard to say whether or not you'll develop this in the other eye as I'm not sure "what" you really have as far as the diagnosis is. Whatever it is, it doesn't BLIND you. Just makes seeing really difficult. And it does it at a time in our lives when other things aren't working so well to, such as bones, joints, lungs, bladders, rear ends, hearts, brains. They call it the Golden Years.
Hi there Jim K,
What exactly is ARMD? and was you told it is hereditary? I will do more research on net with a bit more info.
Regards,
Bravo.
Age Related macular Degeneration
There are two kinds of ARMD dry and wet. If you are concerned with yours I would deffinately make an appointment and talk with your Optometrist or Opthalmologist about it. As far as I know it is not definately going to go to the other eye. But I would definately take the medicines that the doctor gave you for your eyes. Increase your greens and wear sunglasses. All of those things can help you from getting ARMD in your other eye. It is quite possible that you will develop it in the other eye but it's not guarenteed.
I hope this helps you!
Paul MB's answer is fine: I'll just add a shorter one in case his was too intimidatingly long.
No, no cure. Yes, it usually affects the second eye in time, should you live long enough (Nobody gets out of here alive!).
Good diet is recommended, especially the dark green vegetables to give good supplies of key anti-oxidants.
If you hate your green veggies, capsules are available.
Not a cure, but they may help slow changes.
It doesn't spread to total blindness. It only ever affects the central portion of the vision.
If it becomes sufficiently bad, special advice and help is available to make the best use of the vision that is there.
It can't be cured, but there are many "workarounds"
Dry ARMD is a slow thing.
Any sudden change in your vision should be reported IMMEDIATELY because that could mean you have developed wet ARMD as well, and that's a different story.
Optometrist, retired.