All About Retinal Disease
It’s true that all of the organs that we have in our body are delicate. Most of them can be torn extremely easily. Most of them, however, are safe underneath skin, muscle, and bone. There is, however, one organ that is on the outside of your body and that is much more vulnerable than most of the other organs that you have. This organ can get a disease and when it does, you will notice it very quickly. This organ is the eye. The eyes are extremely important for a number of reasons, but mostly because they help us to navigate in this busy world of ours. Retinal disease is one condition that can cause people to lose their eyesight, which is why it is important to know what retinal disease is all about – what the symptoms of retinal diseases are and what you can do if you wind up having some sort of retinal disease. If you have been diagnosed with glaucoma you need to talk to your doctor about glaucoma treatment.
What the Retina Does
Before you can understand what a retinal disease does, you have to understand why the retina is important. The retina is a very complex part of the eye, but without this part of the eye a person would not be able to see. It is a light sensitive tissue that is in the inner surface of the eye. It is, basically, like a large camera. Your entire eye works like a camera, with light going through the cornea and the lens and to the retina, which is near the back of the eye. When light and image strike the retina they travel through the optic nerve and into the brain, which is when the images are transformed into something that our brain can understand, and that’s how we see images. The retina is an extremely important part of the eye, which is why, when a retinal disease comes along, it can be extremely serious. Another serious procedure is cataract surgery.
Macular Degeneration
The most common type of retinal disease is macular degeneration. Macular degeneration is a condition that is often caused in elderly people which can cause them to slowly lose all of their eyesight. But how does macular degeneration work? Behind the retina is a part of the eye that is called the choroid. This part of the eye supplies blood to the central part of the retina, which is called the macula. There are two different forms of macular degeneration. The first is dry. When you have dry macular degeneration, you are dealing with a buildup of debris between the choroid and the retina, which can actually cause the retina to detach. With wet macular degeneration, which is much more common than dry macular degeneration, blood vessels grow behind the retina from the choroid, and this can also cause the retina to detach. While the wet form is more common, it is also considered to be the more severe of the two different types of macular degeneration.
Symptoms of Macular Degeneration
Macular degeneration is often called age related macular degeneration because it is suffered mainly by the elderly. Many times an elderly person doesn’t realize that they have macular degeneration, but think that they are dealing with simply losing their eyesight because they are growing older. The symptoms of both wet macular degeneration and dry macular degeneration are similar, and both are interesting for scientists, as they can be gradual or they can be sudden. Patients who have macular degeneration may start to see shadowy areas in the middle of their vision, or they may start to see things that are a bit fuzzy, as though they’re looking through a piece of carnival glass. Doctors use an Amsler grid to test if their patients are dealing with macular degeneration or some other condition. This test is a grid that is basically a number of small black lines, both horizontal and vertical. If their patient sees anything other than lines, for instance that they’re distorted, then they will likely be tested by a fluorescein angiography. This test helps doctors to determine if the blood vessels around the macula and the retina are doing anything strange.
Treating Macular Degeneration
Once a person has been diagnosed with macular degeneration, the first thing that they want to know is how to cure it. Unfortunately, while there are treatments for macular degeneration, there is no macular degeneration cure. Macular degeneration research is ongoing, and hopefully one day a cure will be discovered, but now all doctors can do is to help their patients to manage the symptoms and to ward off the eventual blindness that follows this condition.The first round of treatment that is often used is medicinal. There are a few different drugs that a doctor can prescribe to help a patient who is dealing with macular degeneration to slow down the disease. One drug that is doing amazingly well at helping people with this retinal disease is Lucentis. This drug actually inhibits a protein known as the vascular endothelial growth factor protein. This protein actually encourages the growth of new blood vessels, and when taken, this medication can prevent new blood vessels from growing up between the macula and the retina, helping to slow down the progression of this retinal disease. Another way to treat wet macular degeneration is surgery. Wet macular degeneration surgery is done using a laser. This laser macular degeneration therapy works by treating the blood vessels that have formed on the retina, helping to delay the advancement of the macular degeneration in a significant manner. Unfortunately it is only good for 20% of people who are suffering from macular degeneration, which is why most doctors will prescribe medications. You may need a crystalens implant or corneal transplantation. Dealing with a retinal disease can be scary, but fortunately there are a number of treatments like retinal detachment surgery that can help to slow the disease down, allowing a person who has the disease, even those who have age related macular degeneration, to slow down the progression of the disease, allowing them to keep their eyesight for a much longer time than they would if they were not treated. Be sure and speak with your consultant about Austin Lasik Surgery.
Dry eyes are a common condition for allergy sufferers. Ask an ophthalmology Austin doctor to help you with your dry eyes. If you need vision correction consider LASIK eye surgery as an alternative to contacts or glasses.
About the Author: Mark Masters has authored may pieces on the eye care & surgery industry and enjoys keeping his readers up to date in this field
