Back to the last of the pages on physical treatments for dry age-related macular degeneration. I have been trying to do these in alphabetical order. Unfortunately, I have a confession to make: I don’t know my alphabet. I missed one! Oh well, what do you want? We are wolves. We travel in packs, not in schools! [Groan. This series has really gotten to Sue! ::grin::]
The scent trail we missed was intraocular telescopes or lenses. This procedure is done on people with very advanced disease. And guess what? This is a scent trail that the pack actually might want to follow! There is some evidence that for people who have lost a great deal of their sight to dry AMD intraocular telescopes and lenses may just improve quality of life.
At least two studies were of good quality and yielded good results. There were some cases of increased ocular pressure, but these did not appear to be that serious. As of the publication of the article (2018), there were clinical trials running in both the UK and the US. If you have significant vision loss, a little telescope in your eye might be a way to improved quality of life.
Okay, wolf pack! We are back on the trail forward. Sometimes we have to double back to a potentially promising trail, but now the next stop is O for ozone.
In the ozone treatment they remove some of your blood, treat it with ozone and replace it. Apparently, this procedure was only being researched by one group in Italy. This lack of replication studies is a red flag suggesting this trail might not be “fresh” for us, wolf pack. Good research needs to be replicated by others. In addition, the studies themselves suggested very minimal improvements in vision. Ozone looks like a false trail, wolf pack.
This leaves us with one more scent trail to follow from this article. This is rheopheresis. Once again, this potential treatment involves the drawing of blood. Only this time the blood is filtered to remove larger molecules before it is returned. The process is said to take several hours and several sessions are required. The theory is reducing the thickness of the blood will improve circulation in the eyes.
Bottom line for this one was also a dead end. Sample sizes were small and results were not very robust.
So, what does all of this mean for us, wolf pack?
Basically it means we, as the pack, go hungry tonight. In the area of physical interventions for AMD, at least based on this article, the pickings are pretty slim. There is very little in this neck of the woods to get us wound up and yipping in excitement.
But that is alright. The pack has gone hungry before. We are cunning and patient. We know a false or a cold trail when we smell one, and we don’t follow it no matter how hungry we may be. There are other patches of woods out there. We will explore those instead. Somewhere there is a fresh trail, and we will find it.
Remember: There are many, different, proposed treatments and “cures” for AMD out there. The great majority of them have not been proven and may only end up being a trap for you, your time and your money. Evaluate carefully every “scent trail” you come upon. Be calculating and cunning. Be the wolf.