Posted on 06/10/2024 4:23:49 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
I've got some mild macular degeneration (early 70s) that is making it hard to read. I've got a "pucker" on my right retina that causes some mild distortion which makes it hard to read. The images from the left and right eye don't line up perfectly anymore. My retina specialist doctor says he can operate on the retina to improve the problem, but he can't say for certain what the outcome would be. There's always a risk of any surgery and in this case it could be losing the affected eye. Also, recurrence of the problem in a few years is fairly common (as happened to a friend of ours). So I'm just having the doc monitor the problem. It's been stable a few years now.
I find I can read pretty well either by closing one eye (a nuisance) or, using both eye, enlarge the font on the computer screen.
My daughter and boyfriend just gave me a Father's Day present of a historical railroading book ("Bonanza Railroads") about short lines in California. The book has not been digitized into the Google Books library.
So I began wondering if there might be technology aids that would assist with reading print books. I found a number of scanners comprising cameras and software that feed the image to the computer. They seem to be mainly aimed at libraries to digitize books, photos and other documents, but they could be useful for personal use.
A company named "CZUR" seems to be a leader in such scanners. Their "CZUR ET24 Pro Professional Book Scanner" with a 24MP Document Camera and Third Generation Auto-Flatten & Deskew Software has had excellent reviews. The software compensates for the curvature you get when you open a book and try to lay it flat.
I'm looking for a scanner than can directly display the live image on my computer, not saving the images to files. But maybe making my own e-book from the scanned images might be a good way to go.
QUESTION: Does anybody have experience with such scanners or know of a friend or relative using them? What do people think of these scanners?
Thanks for the tip. I’ll ask my retina doc.
That’s just lutein & zeaxanthin and some minerals, all of which many of us take even without AMD. You also want to take astaxanthin. The latter has shown some indication of being able to partially reverse cataracts.
Amazon description also says Vitamin C, but the manufacturer does not list it.
It is supposedly a matches to the nutrient formula recommended by the AMD experts at the National Eye Institute based on the Age Related Eye Disease Study 2 to help reduce the risk of moderate to advanced AMD progression.
The product is made by Bausch & Lomb. They are certainly a trusted brand for optical instruments.
Lutein is a xanthophyll and one of 600 known naturally occurring carotenoids. Lutein is synthesized only by plants, and like other xanthophylls is found in high quantities in green leafy vegetables such as spinach, kale and yellow carrots. In green plants, xanthophylls act to modulate light energy and serve as non-photochemical quenching agents to deal with triplet chlorophyll, an excited form of chlorophyll which is overproduced at very high light levels during photosynthesis. See xanthophyll cycle for this topic.
Animals obtain lutein by ingesting plants. In the human retina, lutein is absorbed from blood specifically into the macula lutea, although its precise role in the body is unknown. Lutein is also found in egg yolks and animal fats.
No recommended dietary allowance currently exists for lutein. Some positive health effects have been seen at dietary intake levels of 6–10 mg/day. Note PreserVision contains 500 mg.
Lutein and zeaxanthin have identical chemical formulas and are isomers, but they are not stereoisomers. The only difference between them is in the location of the double bond in one of the end rings.
Several observational studies have provided preliminary evidence for high dietary intake of foods including lutein and zeaxanthin with lower incidence of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), most notably the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS2). Because foods high in one of these carotenoids tend to be high in the other, research does not separate effects of one from the other.
Three subsequent meta-analyses of dietary lutein and zeaxanthin concluded that these carotenoids lower the risk of progression from early stage AMD to late stage AMD.
A 2023 (updated) Cochrane review of 26 studies from several countries, however, concluded that dietary supplements containing zeaxanthin and lutein have little to no influence on the progression of AMD. In general, there remains insufficient evidence to assess the effectiveness of dietary or supplemental zeaxanthin or lutein in treatment or prevention of early AMD.
In 2005, the US Food and Drug Administration rejected a Qualified Health Claims application by Xangold, citing insufficient evidence supporting the use of a lutein- and zeaxanthin-containing supplement in prevention of AMD. Dietary supplement companies in the U.S. are allowed to sell lutein and lutein plus zeaxanthin products using dietary supplement, such as "Helps maintain eye health", as long as the FDA disclaimer statement ("These statements have not been evaluated...") is on the label. In Europe, as recently as 2014, the European Food Safety Authority reviewed and rejected claims that lutein or lutein plus zeaxanthin improved vision.
Last year I got lazy and quit the lutein and zeaxanthin. Just 2 of probably 25 supplements I take and so kind of got lost in the weeds. Over the winter my vision was subjectively deteriorating — I mean not need-opthalmologist-level deteriorating but noticeable.
Then about two weeks ago started them again and improvement was almost immediate in terms of clarity. And started astaxanthin two days ago!
And astaxanthin, which is not naturally present in the retina like the other two so it is kind of like a “super food” — also improves tear consistency and I noticed that even this afternoon. Not having to constantly blink.
Lots of personal anecdotes like that.
“The images from the left and right eye don’t line up perfectly anymore.”
Would glasses with prisms help? I have a weak muscle in one eye that causes double vision. My glasses have prisms that pull the images back into alignment (mostly). Throw in the bifocals and various coatings, the lenses (only) are a thousand bucks. But, they’re a Godsend.
Thanks. I’ve talked to both my ophthalmologist and my retinal doctor and both say corrective lenses are not possible for this macular pucker. It seems strange to me that a lens could not be made to correct the distortion.
February 15, 2019
Question: Can prescription glasses help with a wrinkled retina?
Answer: A wrinkled retina (also called macular pucker) can cause distortion or waviness of vision. Unfortunately, these symptoms are not correctable with prescription glasses.
Answered By: Paul Sternberg Jr., MD
That’s too bad. Both of my parents had AMD. Used to watch the eye doc stick a needle in mom’s eye to inject medicine of some sort.
I also had an eye operation where the doc detached the weak muscle, pulled it closer to the front of the eyeball and reattached it. Except for the bifocals portion, I had perfect alignment for a couple of years. But the misalignment is slowly coming back...as the doctor predicted. Ha...actually had three eye operations in one year. This one, and two cataract procedures. Don’t get me started on the floaters. One in each eye...and they’re shaped like little mosquitoes buzzing around the perimeter of my vision.
I hope things work out for you. Modern eye medicine has come a long way! My last high-priced lenses were perfect straight from the lab...not always the case in the past.
That’s rough, moovova. There’s little more precious than our eyes and sight.
Our neighbor had the operation to correct her macular pucker a few years ago and it came back. I don’t know if she’s going to have operation #2. My retina doc said the macular pucker does tend to come back after the operation. That’s another reason why I’m in a holding pattern and just monitoring it.
Thank God for being able to read on the computer and make the text a lot larger. The distortion isn’t as noticeable with larger text. With small text, the line above tends to run on top of the line I’m reading.
If you wait, you will not be getting any younger or any better.
This may sound odd, but perhaps there is a parallel: recently I tried to have a pair of expensive antique earrings converted from screw-on to pierced. I went to three long-time jeweler shops I've used before, and each said they would have to remove the gems because of the heat of welding a new piece, reset the gems, etc etc and the price would be $300 — twice the price of comparable new ones. Finally on advice of a friend, I went to another long-established jeweler, who did not need to remove and reset the gem because she used a laser device to do the weld—$80 for a beautiful job. It was as if the other jewelers never heard of laser welding.
Thanks.
“If you wait, you will not be getting any younger or any better.” — that’s what I’m worried about. I’ve been going back to the doc about every six months to see what’s going on and make sure things aren’t deteriorating. So far, things are stable.
I’ve got a well-know and respected retina doc. I trust him to know the best and latest techniques. It’s surprising the best technique is a manual scraping of a couple of microns of the scar tissue!
Here is another thread on today's forum:
You may be 100% right about him. But knowing about a technique and practicing it well and/or often are separate things. Some golfers are good at long drive shots on the fairway. Others are good at chip shots or putting. Only champions are good at all the techniques all the time. Like I said, he may well be in the champion category. But it's worth considering.
Pardon me for harping. I took care of both my parents as they got older. Knowing a medical doc for a long time and trusting them because they already knew them became a circular habit and caused them both unnecessary pain and cost them what could have been quite a few more good years. By the time their condition was literally killing them, it was too late. It's part of getting old; not wanting to keep pushing on.
A dear friend of mine is having to go through a series of eye injections, for what they described as having had ‘a stroke’ in their eye.
Maybe whatever they’re being treated with will hopefully help with any future MacDeg issues, in the future.
Sorry to hear about your annoying floaters. I’m sure you’ve tried the supplements with VitC, D, lysine, etc.
Speaking of latest tech ... another friend recently had a tooth crown replaced, at a same day visit. It was 3D printed! It’s one of her front, side teeth ... matches her others perfectly.
Thanks for the link to the melatonin post. I started melatonin maybe 10 or 15 years ago to help with sleep (per my GP’s recommendation). Then I bumped the dosage to 5 mg per night when COVID hit. Maybe it helped? Who knows.
Not harping at all. Appreciate your insights and experience.
My GP left the clinic a couple years ago. He was in his late 50s or so. I thought he was great. I got assigned a new GP, a woman in her mid 30s. She has a tendency to brag “I’m young and smart about the latest medical advancements” implying that old fogey was way past out-to-pasture age. She may be right, but it sure is off-putting.
Holy cow! Next up - AI dentists for the install!
(Had a few crowns installed myself...the old fashioned way.)
You’re very welcome!
My view of doctors has taken a very large hit in the past decade, between the ascendency of the feminist graduates of med school, the annoying narcissim among millenialists, and the suckers who not only fell for the plandemic, but then acted like nazis about it (“It’s safe and effective!”—a logical impossibility).
I asked my old doctor in April 2020 “What do you think of the Marek / East Virginia Medical School prophylaxis protocol.”
His reply told me he had been schooled by the top bosses at the major health care clinic. He said “Follow CDC guidelines.”
My God, he wasn’t the least bit curious as to what doctors around the world were doing to treat the COVID disease. All he could do was parrot what the government told the health care system which was then jammed down all the doctors’ throats..
It was at that exact moment I realized what was going on and lost much faith in the medical establishment.
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