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What it’s like to have Macular Degeneration

Because AMD affects the central vision, it takes away the most critical area of sight. We use our central vision to see faces, read books, watch television, cut our food, control the stations on the radio. It’s also our sharpest vision and has the best color.

No one goes blind from macular degeneration. A person with AMD keeps their peripheral vision, the vision “around the edges” of the field of sight. Close one eye and hold your fist in front of it, about 5 inches away. Notice how you can still see, but you can’t identify anything the fist is hiding. This is one result of macular degeneration. Move your fist closer to your eye and you lose more of the central view. As AMD progresses, the area of vision loss can increase or become more dense. If you do this experiment while looking at a person’s face, you’ll see the problem. That’s why Dad can’t recognize his best friend, but can still find things that fall on the edges of his vision.

Why can he see better sometimes and worse at others?

The quality of vision can change throughout the day. Even people who are fully sighted deal with this issue. You’ve probably noticed it yourself. Maybe things look a little foggy in the morning but clear up in an hour – you may have dry eyes in the morning, but as you blink, they become less dry and you can see better. As we get older, vision takes longer to recover when we move from a bright location into a darker room. For children, this adjustment happens so quickly it hardly bothers them. As you can imagine, anything like this can be worse for someone who already has a vision problem.

People with AMD see worse in dim light or in glaring light or at night. They also may notice that the vision seems worse if they are distressed. While many people have mentioned this, doctors have not figured out why it happens exactly. But, it seems to be a real issue.

Of course, if a person with AMD experiences a sudden change in vision, he should call the retinal specialist as soon as possible. A sudden change may indicate that AMD is worsening, moving from dry to wet, or creating a new bleeding episode. Sudden change requires a call to the doctor.

Seeing things that aren’t there – Charles Bonnet Syndrome

A certain percentage of people with low vision experience hallucinations. They know these images are not real and they may be afraid to tell anyone about them. Click here to learn more.