Macular Degeneration: Your GoodRx Guide

Definition

Macular degeneration is an eye condition that affects central vision. Central vision is the sharp, defined images you see when you look at something head-on. 

The macula is the central portion of the retina (the back layer of the eye). When you look at something, the macula lets you see the differences in print and images. Macular degeneration damages the macula, which can make it hard to do day-to-day activities. 

Macular degeneration doesn’t affect your peripheral vision. If you notice changes in your peripheral vision, it could be from a different eye condition like a retinal tear or glaucoma.

Macular degeneration usually develops as people get older. So it’s often called “age-related macular degeneration.”

Younger people can develop macular diseases, especially if they have diabetes.

There are two types of age-related macular degeneration:

1. Dry: This is the more common type and can affect one or both eyes. As people age, their maculas can thin out and develop drusen — clumps of proteins. A thinned macula doesn’t work as well. 

2. Wet: This type develops when blood vessels grow unchecked under the macula. The vessels bleed, leak, and damage the macula. Wet age-related macular degeneration can affect one or both eyes. 

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Symptoms

People with age-related macular degeneration can experience vision changes, like:

• Trouble seeing in the dark

• Blurriness when looking at something head-on

• Gray spots in the center of vision

• Distorted vision in which straight lines look wavy

• Colors looking less bright

But these symptoms develop in later stages of age-related macular degeneration. People with early-stage age-related macular degeneration often don’t experience any vision changes. 

People who have dry age-related macular degeneration develop late-stage symptoms very slowly. Some people never move from the early to the late stage of age-related macular degeneration.

But people with wet age-related macular degeneration can move from early to late stages quickly. This makes wet age-related macular degeneration more aggressive and unpredictable than the dry type. 

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Diagnosis

Complete eye exams can pick up macular degeneration. If your eye doctor thinks you have macular degeneration, they’ll ask you to see an ophthalmologist (eye specialist) who specializes in caring for the retina. An ophthalmologist can figure out if you have wet or dry macular degeneration. 

Some special tests you may need include:

• Optical coherence tomography: This imaging test is not painful. The machine scans your eye and makes images of your retina. The machine uses a bright light for a few seconds, which may cause brief discomfort. 

• Fluorescein angiography: This test requires an IV (intravenous) line, so you’ll feel a pinch as the needle goes into your arm. You’ll get contrast through the IV and then look into a machine. The machine takes pictures of the blood vessels in your eye. This part isn’t painful, but your vision turns yellow or orange for a minute as the contrast passes through. The pictures show if contrast is leaking out of the blood vessels, which is a sign of wet macular degeneration. 

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Treatments

There’s no cure for age-related macular degeneration. And there’s no treatment for late-stage dry age-related macular degeneration.

Things you can do to keep your eyes healthy and help slow down macular degeneration include:

• Eating a diet keeps your eyes healthy

• Quitting smoking

• Taking AREDS (Age-Related Eye Disease Study) vitamins if your provider recommends them

If you have wet age-related macular degeneration, you can get treatment with special eye injections. These eye injections are anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) medications. Anti-VEGF medications stop blood vessels from forming. 

An ophthalmologist injects these medications into the back of your eye once a month. Popular anti-VEGF medications include:

• Lucentis (ranibizumab)

• Byooviz (ranibizumab-nuna)

• Avastin (bevacizumab)

• Beovu (brolucizumab)

• Eylea (aflibercept)

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