Symptoms & Effects of Macular Degeneration on your Vision?

Age-related macular denegation can develop gradually with no signs of pain or discomfort due to its effect on one eye initially where the other eye acting as a backup, which may prevent signs of detection of an eye condition. Early symptoms of macular degeneration include a sudden change in the quality of your eyesight and even distorted visuals of straight lines appearing before you. With time, this may deteriorate into a dramatic loss of your central vision.

Age-related (dry) macular degeneration often results in blurred central vision, for nearsightedness and farsightedness. The center of vision is effected mainly as it turns shadowy, and further increases as the disease progress. There may be an instance where blind spots may also be developed, causing immense difficulty to view color and focusing on attention to detail.

Whereas for age-related (wet) macular degeneration, the case may be slightly different as straight lines may start to appear wavy. In other cases, age-related macular degeneration patients may completely lose their central vision loss from time to time.

Such symptoms of macular degeneration can also be understood as the body’s ways of letting an individual know that not the eyes are not performing as they have previously, indicating a clear warning message. Some symptoms would need a detailed check-up by a medical professional, while others may be needed to overcome through the use of assistive technology or low vision aids.

Vision problems like visual field defects (wide angle of vision) can also be a result of this disease. The center area of an individual’s visual field may become blurry, distorted and, even lost and can be a major source of discomfort when reading, driving, or even watching TV. It simultaneously also effects the contrast sensitivity of your vision making it highly troublesome to see textures and comprehend subtle changes in your surroundings. For instance not being able to perceive textures in pavements or staircases due to limitation of visual sight can result in the risk of falling off the stairs causing serious injuries.

Poor visual adaptability to changing light levels may be one of the symptoms that you may be suffering from Macular Degeneration. This may cause extreme issues when driving and transitioning from a well-lighted room to a darker one. Anti-glare or UV sunglasses will serve as the ideal low vision aids to overcome issues with changing light levels or contrast sensitivity.

Just as it effects visuals based on light levels and contrast, depth perception is also impaired meaning the individual may be unable to perceive or judge distances resulting in missteps and falls.

The above-mentioned symptoms also take into account Stargardt disease which is prevalent in younger age-groups, having said that it is important to remember that other eye diseases and conditions can have some of these same symptoms such as central vision loss, hazy spots in the center of the vision, or difficulty in adjusting when moving from light to dark environments.

Symptoms associated with age-related macular degeneration if surpassed the initial stage can cause serious limitations with vision i.e. blurry or fuzzy vision, straight lines appearing wavy, objects or visuals appearing smaller, and the creation of an empty area in the center of the visual field.

Other symptoms may include reduced central vision in one or both the eyes, requiring a brighter light to read, difficulty in adapting to low levels of light, blurriness of words, reduced intensity of colors and difficulty in recognizing faces, dark portions or whiteout appearing in the center of your vision.