Disease
Bacterial Veginosis (BV)
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is an eye disease that can blur the sharp, central vision you need for activities like reading and driving. “Age-related” means that it often happens in older people. “Macular” means it affects a part of your eye called the macula.
AMD is a common condition — it’s a leading cause of vision loss for people age 50 and older. AMD doesn’t cause complete blindness, but losing your central vision can make it harder to see faces, drive, or do close-up work like cooking or fixing things around the house.
AMD happens very slowly in some people. Even if you have early AMD, you may not experience vision loss for a long time. For other people, AMD progresses faster and can lead to central vision loss in one eye or both eyes.
There’s currently no treatment for early AMD, so your eye doctor will probably just keep track of how your eyes are doing with regular eye exams. Eating healthy, getting regular exercise, and quitting smoking can also help.
If you are diagnosed with intermediate or late AMD, ask your eye doctor about treatment options and how the condition may affect your vision in the future.
If you have intermediate or late AMD, special dietary supplements (vitamins and minerals) may be able to stop it from getting worse.
For people with a type of late AMD called “wet” or neovascular AMD, there are other treatments that may be able to stop further vision loss:
Medicines called anti-VEGF drugs that the doctor injects in your eye
Laser treatment, called photodynamic therapy (PDT)
