Macular degeneration or age-related macular degeneration (AMD or ARMD) is one of the leading causes of blindness among the old generation today.
Macula - the point of maximum sensitivity on the retina - starts degenerating, thus affecting the central vision of the eye.
The growth of the disease is generally slow, starting with seeing shadowy areas in central vision along with sensing distortion in them.
There are two forms of the disease:
Dry (non-neovascular) - caused either by thinning of macula, or through depositing of pigment in it, or both.
Wet (neovascular) - caused by new blood vessels growing (neovascularization) beneath macula and leaking blood, causing permanent damage to the light-sensitive retinal cells, and thus creating blind spots in central vision.
Macular Degeneration Dry
Ophthalmology doesn't yet know objectively what causes macular degeneration or who is more at risk.
Statistical data can always be distorted and interpreted to prove (!) what you want to.
Even The American Academy of Ophthalmology has given its opinion that findings regarding age related macular degeneration and its risk factors have been formulated in contradictory ways.
Macular degeneration doesn't have a clear-cut cure too. Only its progression can be delayed and that's all.
There is no FDA-approved treatment for dry macular degeneration. FDA-approved drugs of Macugen and Visudyne used with Photodynamic Therapy aim at stopping abnormal blood vessel growth in wet AMD only.
Macular Degeneration Wet
But we see some ray of hope in the words of Dr. W.H.Bates who worked a lot all through his life on the sensitivity of macula and fovea and their effect on vision:
'In the center of the retina is a small circular elevation known, from the yellow color which it assumes in death and sometimes also in life, as the "macula lutea", literally the "yellow spot".'
'In the center of this spot is the fovea, a deep depression of darker color.'
'In the center of this depression there are no rods, and the cones are elongated and pressed very closely together.'
'The other layers, on the contrary, become here extremely thin, or disappear altogether, so that the cones are covered with barely perceptible traces of them.
Beyond the center of the fovea the cones become thicker and fewer and are interspersed with rods, the number of which increases toward the margin of the retina.'
'The precise function of these rods and cones is not clear; but it is a fact that the center of the fovea, where all elements except the cones and their associated cells practically disappear, is the seat of the most acute vision.'
Normal Vision
Credit: National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health
'As we withdraw from this spot, the acuteness of the visual perceptions rapidly decreases.'
'The eye with normal vision, therefore, sees one part of everything it looks at best, and everything else worse, in proportion as it is removed from the point of maximum vision; and it is an invariable symptom of all abnormal conditions of the eyes, both functional and organic, that this central fixation is lost.'
'These conditions are due to the fact that when the sight is normal the sensitiveness of the fovea is normal, but when the sight is imperfect, from whatever cause, the sensitiveness of the fovea is lowered, so that the eye sees equally well, or even better, with other parts of the retina. Contrary to what is generally believed, the part seen best when the sight is normal is extremely small.'
'The text-books say that at twenty feet an area having a diameter of half an inch can be seen with maximum vision, but anyone who tries at this distance to see every part of even the smallest letters of the Snellen test card - the diameter of which may be less than a quarter of an inch - equally well at one time will immediately become myopic.'
'The fact is that the nearer the point of maximum vision approaches a mathematical point, which has no area, the better the sight.'
'The cause of this loss of function in the center of sight is mental strain; and as all abnormal conditions of the eyes, organic as well as functional, are accompanied by mental strain, all such conditions must necessarily be accompanied by loss of central fixation.'
'When the mind is under a strain the eye usually goes more or less blind. The center of sight goes blind first, partially or completely, according to the degree of the strain, and if the strain is great enough the whole or the greater part of the retina may be involved.'
Vision in Macular Degeneration
Credit: National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health
Vision therapy works on the lines of Dr. Bates, but added with the knowledge of chakras having their clear cut effect on vision, it promises to become much more efficient as far as instant vision correction is concerned.
Eye is the structure; and vision, its function.
If the structure is right, function is right too.
And if the function is somehow set right, shouldn't structure get set right too?
That's only an idea. But isn't it worth researching on?
Correcting function in order to correct the structure!
Especially when it comes to search for an objective treatment for macular degeneration!
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