Greetings! Beautiful day. Sunny but cold. 37 degrees Fahrenheit. My friend who is ever concerned about my welfare knew my husband had pumped up my bike tires and thought today would be perfect for me to join her in a bike ride. Yes, I want to ride, but it is 37 degrees! Whoa.
New washer came bright and early this morning. I am actually very glad to be able to get some laundry done. Classic example of not appreciating something until it is no longer there.
Which brings me to our vision and a problem I heard about the other week. At least one member has retinal scarring. If one person has it, I suspect others do as well. I tried to look it up online and there was surprisingly little. Everything I found turned me around to macular puckers and holes. They are obviously all related, but what I was looking for was scarring in particular. If you find any good info, please share. Maybe write a page?.
According to WiseGeek, retinal scarring is exactly that, scar tissue on and under the retina. Small scars are not that big a deal. Our wonderful brains just sort of erase them. However, big ones make problems by giving us visual distortions and loss.
What types of distortions? According to WiseGeek the Amsler Grid may curve and/or parts of it may pull out of position. Reading can be just about impossible for people with large retinal scars.
Cause of retinal scarring can be pretty much anything that causes the retina to become inflamed. That would include injury, illness and wet AMD. Repeated inflammation leads to the potential of bigger scars and more vision loss. [Lin/Linda here: I found an article that says “People can develop retinal scarring from severe myopia, ocular histoplasmosis syndrome, and wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Scarring results from inflammation, caused by irritation of the retina. Severe occurrences can cause swelling of the retina, wrinkling of the surface tissue, or even retinal detachment.” The article also talks about research into a compound that may prevent scarring in the first place.]
You hear the cautionary note there? For you folks with wet, very few things are more important than keeping up with your treatments and preventing irritation to your retinas.
Repeat after me: “I promise I will get my treatments in a timely fashion. So help me God.” Now spit in your hand and virtually shake….yuck. Who came up with that spit in your hand business? Obviously knew nothing about viruses and bacteria.
Treatments for retinal scarring appear to be limited at this time, of course. Because the available treatments are invasive, often the first ‘treatment’ is watch and wait. Other treatments are vitrectomy and something called a membrane peel.
We talked about vitrectomies in the past. In that procedure the gel like substance in your eye is drained. That substance, the vitreous, has string-like things in it that can adhere to the macula and tug. These ‘tugs’ create puckers, holes and scars.
Epiretinal membrane peeling is described in an article by Hampton Roy. The title is, aptly, Epiretinal Membrane Treatment Management. My interpretation is that in a peel, the surgeon teases off the upper layer of the retina. Maybe like trying to take off just one cell layer of an onion? Roy goes into explanations on a few different types of peels. My assumption is their assumption is the scar will be mostly in the top layer and can be removed this way.
So now you know everything I think I know about retinal scarring and its treatment. Remember, I am not a doctor and you should assume I know nothing when it comes to pretty much anything. The great majority of what I think I know has come off the web. Always check with your doctor.