Age Related Macular Degeneration

Macular degeneration is an eye condition that can be very scary. Many people have friends or family who have been impacted by the effects. This condition effects the macula, which is where your central vision is located.

What happens in ARMD is that over time there is a breakdown in the protective barriers within the retina and the ability for the eye to filter and remove waste products becomes more challenging. An analogy would be if the garbage truck used to come every week to pick up trash, but now they’re only coming once a month. You’ll end up with a lot of build up of garbage in that time and that causes problems.

The early stages of “dry” ARMD begins with the formation of yellow deposits called “drusen.” These are essentially the waste products of the retina that aren’t filtering out. Many patients will begin to develop drusen, but they may not necessarily have ARMD. Even if someone has early ARMD, many patients will remain stable at this level and not progress.

Unfortunately, some patients will progress beyond early ARMD into more moderate or severe stages. They can even move into other types referred to as “geographic atrophy” ARMD or “wet” ARMD.

Dry ARMD describes the early form of ARMD where there is no bleeding or fluid building up in the retina. If someone is progressing, they can move into the “wet” version where new blood vessels attempt to grow, leading to blood and fluid building up. This type of ARMD can be fast progressing and cause rapid decreases in vision.

The good news with wet ARMD is that there are a number of excellent treatment options available at this time. Many patients will regain lost vision within a few months of beginning their treatments.

Geographic atrophy (GA) is another type of progressive dry ARMD. In this type, the retinal tissue will begin to die due to poor nutrition. This type is usually slow progressing, but can really impair someone’s vision when it occurs. Until 2023, there were no real treatment options available to slow the progression of GA. There are now currently two medications which have FDA approval, though long term data is still pending on how effective they are.