Shots work for eye condition

Shots work for eye condition

Dear Dr. Donohue • I am told by my doctors that I have macular degeneration. They're giving me shots in my eye. They shots are supposed to halt or slow down the process. I already have had many shots, but I really can't see that much better. What do you think of them? Is it worth the pain of injection? Please let me know. — F.R.


Answer • The macula is a small, circular area of the retina. It provides fine vision, the kind needed to read, drive and watch TV. Macular degeneration — a deterioration of the macula — comes in two varieties, dry and wet. The dry kind is the more common, accounting for 80 percent to 90 percent of cases. Wet macular degeneration is an abnormal growth of blood vessels beneath the macula. These fragile vessels leak fluid that infiltrates the macula. You have the wet variety.
Wet macular degeneration progresses more rapidly than the dry kind. It's a more dangerous threat to vision loss. Only five years ago, a new drug, strictly for wet degeneration, appeared. It's Lucentis, and it's given by injection into the eye. It's not guaranteed to improve vision, but it reliably stops the progression of wet degeneration. Avastin is a more recent drug, also given by eye injection, which works much like Lucentis. It is much less expensive. A third drug, marketed this past year, is Eylea, and it, too, is an eye-injected medicine.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/health/paul-donohue/shots-work-for-eye-condition/article_3c895ca8-08a6-5063-b1c4-4cd4a13404be.html#ixzz1susQ42ni