Treatment Options:

Anti-angiogenic drugs. Your doctor injects these medications into your eye. They stop new blood vessels from forming and block the leaking from the abnormal vessels that cause wet macular degeneration.

Some people who take these drugs have been able to regain vision that they lost from AMD. You will likely need to get the treatment repeated on follow-up visits.

Laser therapy. Your doctor may suggest a treatment with high-energy laser light that can sometimes destroy actively growing abnormal blood vessels from AMD.

Photodynamic laser therapy. It’s a two-step treatment that uses a light-sensitive drug to damage your abnormal blood vessels.

Your doctor injects a medication into your bloodstream, which gets absorbed by the abnormal blood vessels in your eye. Next, he shines a laser into the eye to activate the drug, which damages the abnormal blood vessels.

Vitamins. A large study by the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health, called AREDS (Age-Related Eye Disease Study), shows benefits if you take a supplement formula that has vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, zinc, and copper. According to the research, the risk for vision loss goes down for some people with intermediate to advanced dry AMD.

An updated AREDS2 formula added lutein, zeaxanthin, and omega-3 fatty acids and removed beta-carotene, which might be safer for smokers. Beta-carotene is linked to a higher risk of lung cancer in people who smoke.

Low  vision  aids. You can get devices that have special lenses or electronic systems that enlarge images of nearby objects.

Researchers are always studying new ways to treat age-related macular degeneration. Some experimental methods are:

Submacular surgery. A surgeon removes your abnormal blood vessels, scar tissue, or blood.

Retinal translocation. It’s a procedure that destroys abnormal blood vessels in your eye that are directly under the center of your macula. That’s a spot that your doctor can’t safely get to with a laser beam.

In a retinal translocation, your doctor rotates the macular center away from the abnormal blood vessels. Once the macular center is out of harm’s way, your doctor treats the abnormal blood vessels with a laser.