Macular Degeneration‎

Have you got it, Kenny?

Yes, came on about a year ago. Been to hospital to see the main man a few times. Another visit on Tuesday. Just the one eye fortunately.

my mother in law as it.....

Oh right, tell her to get today's Telegraph, front page, or look on line. There's an article about it. Apparently a telescope is being devised which is fitted to a contact lense, which will help greatly.

Sorry to hear that.

My mum has been given a grid to look at to check for wavy lines.

My Mum has a bad case of age related macular degeneration. She has been given a product called "viteyes" on prescription, which seems to retail normally at about 60 quid for 3 months supply. This stuff is the formula recommended by the "AREDS 2" study, which you can find out loads about through google.

Might be worth mentioning it to your doctor for an opinion at least.

i_agree_with_nick, I've got the grid thing too (somewhere lol)

Thanks Degs, very kind, will make a note of that.

Mum has it :(
We have more than 360watts of lighting in her small lounge all day long - and she still asks if the lights are on. Optician comes annually to check for infections but can do no more. Mum continuously asks for a faith-healer to get her sight back. Difficult to deal with. :(

Sorry to hear that Ivor.

Take a look at this.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/11411659/New-contact-lenses-will-help-people-see-with-inbuilt-telescope.html

kenny what was the name of that stuff you got for your cats arthritis, I think it began with M? The company who make the stuff for my dog have gone bust.

Metacam, Burton. Seemed to do the trick for my old lady, for now anyway.

cheers that's it, I believe they also do one for dogs

Very interesting Kenny.
Mum's 93 and she'd be at the back of the q. I'm sure..
But looking good for future years :)

I hate eye problems.

I'm only 34 and I've already got a cataract that needs operating on

My mum has (very expensive NHS)injections in one eyeball for WMD every couple of months. She reads/watches TV without complaint.  Given the rate of progress I expect it will be all pretty routine when it concerns most of us.  Or something better.  She was 95 6 minutes ago.

What does the W stand for, bodil? Goodnight. Will look in with my good eye tomorrow.

Wet.

Thanks.

May look into this.

http://www.londoneyehospital.com/landing/macular-degeneration/?gclid=CMzdvZaLydECFY0aGwod0eIOew

My ma had wet maticular disease, and had almost gone blind in one eye but they kept the other going with injections into the eyeball. I used to take her to a specialist clinic for these and a braver bunch of old folk you would struggle to find. I'm still proud of her for enduring it every month.

Well mines not all that worse, 2 years down the line, but if the other went the same way I wouldn't be able to use pc or watch telly properly. Looked into the link above. 6-7k per eye.

eat broccoli - use castor oil drops in the eyes.

do a google on this. - delays as much as six months?

apparently apples help with this, or a diet very high in quercetin and antioxidants, think garlic and onions. med diet prob a good diet to follow.

Vitamins A, C, E, and beta-carotene (found in carrots)
    Lycopene  (found in tomatoes)
    Flavonoids  (found in ginkgo biloba, black cherries, blackberries, bilberries, and blueberries)
    Quericetin  - a specialized flavonoid found in apples, onions, tea, and red wine
    Coenzyme Q10 - a vitamin-like substance found in soy, whole grains, mackerel, and chicken
    Trace minerals, such as selenium, zinc, manganese, and copper also appear to help cells fight off free radical damage.

all help with MD.

there is no pill in the world as great as the food on our planet for helping with all age-related disease.

Eating three or more servings of fruits a day, such as pears, may also lower your risk of age-related macular degeneration (ARMD), the primary cause of vision loss in older adults.

As always with diet, it's the chemistry between what you consume, not just isolated quantities of this vitamin or that mineral.

Take just the first one on that list - vitamin A. That comes in many forms, and they can change according to how they react in the body - retinoic acid, retinal and retinol.

Retinal is the one we need for healthy retinas.

Here we go:

Vertebrate animals ingest retinal directly from meat, or produce retinal from one of four carotenoids (beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, gamma-carotene, and beta-cryptoxanthin), which they must obtain from plants or other photosynthetic organisms (no other carotenoids can be converted by animals to retinal, and some carnivores cannot convert any carotenoids at all).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinal

Clearly, as long as you eat enough meat, then you get enough retinal, because you are getting it directly. But relying on vegetable sources, such as carrots, is problematic, since your body has to convert one form of vitamin A into another to obtain retinal. How does it do that? It turns out to be by a chemical reaction with animal fats (lipids):

Secondary vitamin A deficiency is associated with chronic malabsorption of lipids, impaired bile production and release, and chronic exposure to oxidants, such as cigarette smoke, and chronic alcoholism. Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin and depends on micellar solubilization for dispersion into the small intestine, which results in poor use of vitamin A from low-fat diets. Zinc deficiency can also impair absorption, transport, and metabolism of vitamin A because it is essential for the synthesis of the vitamin A transport proteins and as the cofactor in conversion of retinol to retinal.

... Due to the unique function of retinal as a visual chromophore, one of the earliest and specific manifestations of vitamin A deficiency is impaired vision

... The conclusion that can be drawn from the newer research is that fruits and vegetables are not as useful for obtaining vitamin A as was thought; in other words, the IUs that these foods were reported to contain were worth much less than the same number of IUs of fat-dissolved oils and (to some extent) supplements. This is important for vegetarians, as night blindness is prevalent in countries where little meat or vitamin A-fortified foods are available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_A

So plenty of butter and meat with your carrots, for the fat and zinc, and cut out the ciggies and daily booze.

And vitamin A is just the first item on the list.

The conclusion from all of that? Eat a bit of everything and avoid crazy diets which cut out whole food sources, such as meat. We evolved into an animal that can live relatively healthily to an astonishing age compared to other apes precisely because we evolved to consume just about everything we can catch. If you start artificially eliminating that, then you inevitably lose the factors which brought about this evolutionary advantage