OPTIMAL VISION

JLife spoke to Mr Arun Sachdev from Optimyze Health about how using the latest technology light therapy can improve patients with macular degeneration.

Mr Arun Sachdev is the first clinician in the North-West to offer a newly advanced light therapy for dry macular degeneration – currently the only approved treatment for people with this progressive condition. Macular degeneration occurs most commonly in later life and can cause impairment of vision but there are things you can do to protect your eye-health.

Hi Arun! Firstly, can you explain what macular degeneration is?

Hello. Your macula is the centre part of the eye, so it's the part of your retina responsible for reading, focus, and colour perception. Macular degeneration happens when this part of the eye begins to weaken.

There are two types of macular degeneration, dry and wet. If diagnosed with the dry form your symptoms can either progress as dry macular degeneration or convert to wet macular degeneration, where fluid develops at the back of the eye. Until now there had been no treatment for dry macular degeneration, only the wet form, which has a treatment of injections in the eye. Whereas, if we can catch the signs early while still dry then the new non-invasive light therapy treatment may be beneficial.

What are the symptoms of macular degeneration, can it be prevented?

In the early stages, people can be asymptomatic but still have macular degeneration. But as the condition progresses it can start to affect the quality of vision, and reading, close-up in particular. Though it’s most common in those over 60, due to advancements in scanning technology over the last few years, we can now pick up the signs of degeneration in younger patients.

Preventing the condition is where the treatment comes in. If we detect you have clear signs of developing dry macular degeneration, you can have the light therapy treatment to potentially prevent its progress.

Otherwise, preventing the condition is all about living a healthy lifestyle. All the usual measures, not smoking, eating a nutritious diet full of fresh fruit, leafy dark greens and vegetables. Being healthy doesn’t just aid macular degeneration but all eye health in general.

For your chance to win a free consultation with Mr Sachdev –including a complete eye examination and state of the art imaging –followed by treatment and nutritional advice and a prognostic assessment of any macular disease detected, answer the following question:

it take?

What is the procedure for the light therapy and how long does

It’s a very straightforward therapy which can be performed in a relaxed setting. When it’s a problem with the eyes people often think of lasers and painful procedures. But it’s a very easy-going process which can be performed in an office room environment rather than a clinical setting.

What happens during the therapy is, over about a four-minute period, a sequence of lights is delivered into each eye in turn. You do not have to have drops in your eye beforehand, there is no pain, and your vision recovers fairly quickly after it’s done. So, patients can drive themselves to and from their appointments.

The treatment will be made up of nine of these 10-minute appointments at three sessions a week for three weeks. After the treatment has been done the patient will be reviewed two to three months later to see the effect of the therapy.

Optimyzehealth.co.uk

Optimyzeinfo@gmail.com

07921 836 207

How many types of macular degeneration are there?

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23rd June 2023

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