I want to get this typed and out because Lin and I both suspect people will not listen to me or Paul McCartney and let the suggestion of atrophic damage beyond the macula be.
How can you not listen to Paul? He was my favorite Beatle when I was a teenager! Remember when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan? [Lin/Linda: of course I do – I was sitting on the floor in front of the TV loving every second of it.]
What? Pertinence to the topic? Okay. Sigh.
Found an article based on research coming out of Seoul, South Korea. The research looked at peripheral reticular pigmentary degeneration (PRPD). That is lesions on other areas of the retina as opposed to lesions only on the macula.
Primero point: the authors say three or four times this type of degeneration is rare, rare, rare. They had trouble finding enough people to make their study valid.
Point segundo: patients with degeneration of the peripheral retina are significantly older than patients who do not have it. Yes, some of you are up there but most of us don’t have to worry about the truly advanced age factor for some time.
Point three, whatever that is in Spanish [tercero]: the most common, probably contributing factors in these people were factors related to compromised circulation. That was both systemic and ocular circulation. The biggies were found to be retinal artery occlusion, ischemic (low blood flow) optic neuropathy, and a couple of other ischemias. [Click here for more about these conditions that are sometimes called ‘eye strokes’.]
One that sort of scared me was a positive correlation with high blood pressure. However, last week my pressure was 122/78! Admire it now because I cannot tell you the last time it was so beautiful.
Other factors are as follows: stroke, carotid artery stenosis, and yes, AMD.
Now don’t get your panties in a bunch just yet. The theory is, once again, there are common, underlying factors leading to these conditions. AMD does NOT cause PRPE although the same may not be said in reverse. PDPR may promote the development of AMD.
They are looking at a shared genetic risk between AMD and PDPR. There is evidence a complement factor H variant is involved in coding for a propensity for PDPR just as it is thought to code for some (all?) variants of AMD.
Choroidal ischemia is a factor in AMD as well as PDPR.
So, bottom line here: this is a very rare occurrence, especially in younger oldsters. It is related to poor circulation. Circulation tends to get worse as we get older. It is also possibly related to variants in complement factor H.
Can’t change your genes just yet at any rate. Cannot get any younger. That leaves taking care of your circulatory system. Do what you can to improve it.
As an anonymous member of the British Ministry of Information said: “Keep calm and carry on.”
Our journey is not over yet.
written October 8th, 2017