Chronic Dry Macular Degeneration
As you get older, you need your eyes more than ever. However, many senior citizens suffer from dry macular degeneration which is a chronic eye disease suffered by people in their older years. With this disease, your central vision is obstructed by tissue that has deteriorated within your eye. The macula is the part of your eye that is affected the most. It lies in the center of your retina which is at the very back of your eyeball.
With this degenerative disease, you won’t experience total blindness but your eyesight will be affected greatly. Your central vision is the most affected and macular degeneration causes you to have blind spots and sometimes blurring of your vision. The disease is most often found in people who are over the age of 50 and most often in women.
With this disease, you will experience certain symptoms as it progresses. Some of the more common symptoms are as follows. When you’re reading or looking at something closely, you find that you need a very bright light to see it. You find it hard to adjust your eyesight when you enter a dimly lit room. Faces start looking the same to you and you have a hard time recognizing even familiar people. Your vision becomes hazy and becomes less accurate, with increasing episodes of blind spots.
Not everyone who gets the disease has it in both of their eyes. It is common for one eye to deteriorate faster than the other one. Some people do not realize they have the disease in one eye because they depend on their “good” eye to compensate for the other one. In time, however, both eyes will likely be affected and the quality of your life will deteriorate rapidly.
Dry macular degeneration is certainly not a disease that anyone wants to have. Even people who have had excellent vision throughout their lives can get the disease. Certain factors contribute to the disease and some people are more at risk than others. Some risks associated with the disease are: Advancing age, genetics, being of the Caucasian race, being female, smoking, being overweight and having light colored eyes.
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