My health care professional recommends that I have laser surgery for wet AMD. Should I schedule the surgery now, or wait a couple years and see how bad my vision gets?
Because the abnormal blood vessel growth in wet AMD can cause severe vision loss in a short time anywhere from a few months to a few years treating the blood vessels at an early stage is more effective. Laser surgery is most effective when the leaky blood vessels growing in or under the retina are caught before they have advanced too close to the part of the macula on which visual images are focused. Only a small percentage of wet AMD patients are candidates for laser surgery because the blood vessels are too close to the macula, and treating with the laser beam would damage the macula even more. It’s important to recognize that even with treatment, there is no cure for wet AMD, and whatever vision is lost from the disease cannot be returned. At best, the laser treatment can slow progression of the disease and help maintain what central vision remains. Like dry AMD, wet AMD has no cure.
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