What is macular degeneration?

Macular degeneration is a profound eye disease in which vision continues to deteriorate. This is because the quality of the macula, also known as the yellow spot, declines.

Studies have shown that it helps to stop smoking, ensure a healthy weight and adequate exercise. Furthermore, if necessary, you can take special dietary supplements containing antioxidants in a specific composition, called the AREDS-2 formula, in consultation with your ophthalmologist.

In most cases, the injection is a short and safe treatment. The most common complaints are irritation and poor vision especially on the day of the injection. The most common complications with an injection into the eye are bleeding (superficial or in the eye) or inflammation. With rest and possibly drug treatment, these go away quickly. In rare cases, recovery surgery is required.

Many studies have been done on the side effects of anti-VEGF injections into the eye in the rest of the body. These have shown that the risk of side effects per injection is very small. It was initially thought that there might be a slightly increased risk of heart or brain attack, death or bleeding, but the various studies have not shown a clear increased risk of this to date.

The first symptoms are blurred vision with or without a slight distortion in the image, usually in one eye. For example, the lines of a tile wall are not quite straight or there is a dent. Sometimes patients see a gray or dark spot in the center that is permanent. Also, more light is often needed when reading.

Whether treatment is possible depends on the form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD comes in two forms. The dry form and the wet form.

About 80%-90% of people with AMD have the dry form. No treatment is actually available yet for the dry form. If necessary, you can take special dietary supplements containing antioxidants in a specific composition, the so-called AREDS-2 formula, in consultation with your ophthalmologist.

Dry AMD can progress to the wet form. In the wet form, blood vessels develop in the area of macular degeneration and may leak. This leakage can lead to nerve cell damage. In wet AMD, injections of vascular growth inhibitors (VEGF inhibitors) can be given into the eye to slow the process. These injections must be repeated regularly.

There are two types of macular degeneration: Juvenile macular degeneration and age-related macular degeneration. Juvenile macular degeneration presents at an early age, is hereditary and reveals itself in several forms, of which Stargadt's disease is the best known.

Juvenile macular degeneration is relatively rare. Age-related macular degeneration consists of 2 types, namely dry macular degeneration and wet macular degeneration.

Dry macular degeneration begins as small pale yellow deposits, called "drusen," that accumulate in the macula. The appearance of these drusen is accompanied by a reduction in the number of cones in the macula, which will cause vision to deteriorate. This is an insidious and very slow process, which can take many years before vision deteriorates.

In wet macular degeneration, the process of deteriorating vision is much faster than in the dry AMD. Wet AMD occurs when very small new blood vessels begin to grow behind the macula. Because the walls of these blood vessels are affected, blood plasma leaks giving rise to rapid and severe vision deterioration. Eventually, a scar develops in the macula with loss of central vision. Wet AMD occurs almost exclusively in people who already have dry AMD.

In age-related macular degeneration (AMD), only central visual acuity is affected. Peripheral vision (vision around the center) usually remains reasonably good. Because of this, AMD rarely leads to complete blindness. However, patients with AMD often have a distorted central image or a blotch in the center that severely limits vision and makes reading and recognizing faces, for example, difficult.

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