This guest blog post is contributed by Boomerater, a free online resource for Baby Boomers helping you find everything from financial advisors to trip ideas. Seniors for Living contributes its properties to Boomerater’s senior housing directory.

A new Q&A discussion from Boomerater’s forums appears here each Friday. In this week’s post, members share their experiences with Macular Degeneration, the number one cause of age-related blindness.

Question: I was just diagnosed with Macular Degeneration and I’m freaking out. Anyone have experience with this disease? Are there any treatments that work? I’ve never had a problem with my eyes and this came from out of the blue.

Reply #1:
I have macular degeneration (md) in both eyes. The Amsler grid is used to determine if you have md. When I look at the grid with just my right eye all of the lines of the grid seem straight and clear. With my left eye the lines are wavy and distorted. My ophthalmologist diagnosed macular degeneration and sent me to a retina specialist. My mother and both of her siblings had md so I was genetically predisposed to get it. The retina specialist took pictures of my macula, the central part of the retina that provides for sharp, clear vision. The pictures showed I had “dry” md in my right eye, and “wet” in my left. Wet is the worse of the two. Both eyes have “drusens” which are yellow deposits under the retina. These are early signs of md but they alone don’t cause severe vision loss. My center of my left retina has a protuberance that is distorting my vision.

Every six weeks I have Lucentis injections in the white part of my left eye. Sounds like it would hurt, but it really doesn’t. They numb the eye before the injection. After the injection I use antibiotic drops for 3 days to protect against infection. At each visit he takes more pictures to check for change in my left eye. Unfortunately there’s been no improvement, but it hasn’t gotten worse, so maybe injections have held off progression of the disease. The injections are very costly, so make sure your insurance company agrees to pay before you take them. I also take “AREDS” which is a vitamin complex very rich in eye nutrients. And I take lutein, long considered helpful for eye health. My new glasses include a prism in my left lens that has helped a lot for my distant vision. My reading glasses don’t help much, I actually read better with my left eye closed.

Reply #2:
It’s important that anyone diagnosed with macular degeneration check their eyes with the Amsler grid daily and report any changes to the eye doctor. You can download a copy at http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/amsler-grid.htm. This site also has the latest news articles on the disease. By the way, smokers are 2.5 times more likely to get macular degeneration – one more reason to kick the habit.

Reply #3:
I also have Macular Degeneration. As people live longer, experts expect it to become America’s #1 cause of age-related vision loss to become even more prevalent. I read a Times on-line article entitled “Blind to be cured with stem cells” that gave me lots of hope. In London they have been experimenting with laboratory trials on animals, replacing degenerated cells with new ones created from embryonic stem cells. The trials have been successful. While the therapy may not be available for 6 or 7 years, it is encouraging that Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical research company, will produce the artificial membranes on which the embryonic stem cells are placed. Also it appears the treatment may take less than an hour as an outpatient procedure. Read the article at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6122757.ece

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