At 76, Stevie Nicks among aging Americans grappling with macular degeneration
Anybody who caught Stevie Nicks’ two sets on “Saturday Night Live” in October — during which she performed her brand-new female empowerment anthem “The Lighthouse” as well as her classic “Edge of Seventeen” — now knows that her pipes are still as strong and true as they were when she made her SNL debut in the 1970s as a member of Fleetwood Mac.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of her eyesight.
Also in October, the legendary 76-year-old singer — a two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — revealed in a Rolling Stone interview that she’d recently been diagnosed with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
“I got diagnosed with this thing a year and a half ago called wet macular degeneration, and it is not a good thing,” she told the magazine. “I was seeing all these colors, big things of purple. I was having, like, acid trips. And I’m going, ‘I’m not taking any acid, so I don’t understand what this is.’”
As she would come to learn, macular degeneration is an eye disease that occurs when the central part of the retina, call the macula, at the back of one’s eye(s) starts to waste away for unknown reasons and eventually starts to affect the sufferer’s central vision.
There are two kinds of macular degeneration — dry and wet. Anywhere from 80% to 90% of the 20 million macular degeneration sufferers in the U.S. have the former.
The latter, which Nicks has, is far rarer — and more serious.
Nicks explained that her mother suffered from dry macular degeneration and watching the way it affected her is why Nicks has vowed to make the most of her time while she still has full vision.
“There’s dry macular degeneration, which my mom had,” she said. “Her whole thing was doing the financial books for my dad, because she was a financial little wizard. When she was about 80, it was really hard for her to see. In a way, I think it killed her because she was so brokenhearted that she could no longer do this. So when I got diagnosed with this, all of a sudden, I’m going like, ‘You know what? You need to finish these drawings, because what if you start to lose your sight?’ I haven’t drawn in years … but my drawings are as important to me as my songs.”
Understanding age-related macular degeneration
Macular degeneration is often an inherited eye disease, but it also develops in people with no family history. While age is the most common cause of the disease, people can develop it at any age. (Non-age-related macular degeneration is often associated with such factors as diabetes, traumatic head and/or brain injuries, serious infections and/or a diet lacking in proper nutrients, among others.)
The macula helps send images from the eye’s optic nerve to the brain. When the macula gets damaged or begins deteriorating, the brain cannot properly interpret the images that the eyes are seeing.
Dry macular degeneration develops when tiny yellow protein deposits called drusen form under the macula. The built-up deposits dry out and thin the macula.
Conversely, wet macular degeneration occurs when abnormal blood vessels develop under the retina and macula. Often, these blood vessels leak blood and fluid. Because of the fluid buildup, a bulge forms in the macula. The wet version of the disease often progresses quickly.
In both versions, macular degeneration prevents the eye from having proper “central vision.”
As Kierstan Boyd of the American Academy of Ophthalmology explains, with age-related macular degeneration “you cannot see fine details, whether you are looking at something close or far. But your peripheral vision will still be normal. For instance, imagine you are looking at a clock with hands. With age-related macular degeneration, you might see the clock’s numbers but not the hands.”
Treating age-related macular degeneration
While there’s no cure for macular degeneration, detecting and treating it in its early stages can help both slow the progression and decrease the severity of the symptoms.
That said, Cleveland Clinic notes that “even with successful treatments, symptoms often return.”
Depending on whether the sufferer has the dry or wet version of the disease, treatments can include nutritional supplements, medications, photodynamic therapy (PDT) and laser therapy.
With dry macular degeneration, large studies have shown that a combination of vitamins and minerals might slow disease progression. Among the supplements that are often used to treat patients with dry macular degeneration:
- Vitamin E.
- Vitamin C.
- Lutein.
- Zinc.
- Copper.
- Zeaxanthin.
For wet macular degeneration, the most common treatment consists of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) injections.
Boyd explained that these injections “reduce the number of abnormal blood vessels in your retina and slow any leaking from blood vessels.”
Nicks told Rolling Stone that she’s currently undergoing anti-VEGF injections: “Now, every six, seven, eight, nine weeks, I have to have a shot in each one of my eyes. That’s going to be for the rest of my life.”
Boyd also noted that laser surgery — during which an eye surgeon directs a laser beam on the abnormal blood vessels — may also be used to treat certain wet macular degeneration cases.
“The laser beam helps reduce the number of vessels and slow their leaking,” she explained.
What all ophthalmology experts stress is the importance of having your eyes checked regularly — even if you don’t notice changes in your vision.
Age-related macular degeneration is often present before a person experiences any symptoms.
And if you notice any of the following half-dozen symptoms — 1) Difficulty seeing in low light; 2) Blurred vision; 3) Low vision; 4) Problems or changes in the way you see colors; 5) Blank or dark spots in your field of vision; 6) Seeing what should be straight lines as curvy or wavy — see your eye doctor immediately.