Macular degeneration is the most common cause of legal blindness in the United States. It is still a very frustrating disease in that the treatments for it are not as successful as we would like.

Evaluation of macular degeneration can be easily performed at the Cataract Eye Center. Many of our patients who undergo cataract surgery have various stages of macular degeneration. Cataract surgery can be successful in those patients as long as the macular degeneration is diagnosed and known about prior to the surgery.

Treatment for macular degeneration includes a laser treatment if the macular degeneration is in its wet form. Otherwise, multivitamin/multimineral tablets are used to prevent worsening of macular degeneration. There is still no absolute proof that this works, but several practitioners in the United States will advise their patients to use vitamin tablets once a day or every other day just to help slow down the aging process of the retina. Several herbs are also used in this country, again without any solid support for them. Ginko has some weak support in our literature in helping prevent macular degeneration. Otherwise, billsberry is commonly used in this country. There is no evidence that this helps slow down macular degeneration at this time.

Preventing excess ultraviolet exposure may slow down the process of macular degeneration and many eye care professionals may recommend ultraviolet protection in eye glasses because of this.