Posted in The Medical Stuff

Vitamin A and Carotenoids

Posted on by One Vision
Clipboard with a list of Vitamin A rich food to avoid
Carotenoids are the pigments that give vegetables and other plant products, their bright lovely colours.
Before your body can benefit from them nutritionally, it must convert them into retinoids. This process may be difficult for some people to do, including us with Macular dystrophy.
Because our eyes cannot process this and Vitamin A properly, it affects the light receptors, causing damage to the retina, leaving the macular full of Lupofusin, clogging up, making the waste hard to get rid of.
So light sensitivity happens, floaters from the rubbish floating around in there, and damage to the macular, causing the blurry spot that makes our central vision fade.
So supplements, like any extra vitamins you may take, or the food you eat have to be low in Vitamin A and Carotenoids. Which is impossible but my specialist just said as long as I’m not going mad ingesting carrots by the ton, it will help by keeping the damage to a slower pace.

The foods highest in vitamin A are:-

⚫ Carrots

⚫ Broccoli

⚫ Cantaloupe Melons

⚫ Grapefruit

⚫ Red Peppers

⚫ Pistachios

⚫ Liver

⚫ Dried Apricots

⚫ Oily Fish

⚫ Sweet potatoes

⚫ Mangoes

⚫ Tomato Juice

Posted in Funny Stories, How I'm Adapting

Not all doom and gloom

Posted on by One Vision
It isn’t all doom and gloom though. There are some funny moments now 4 plus years down the line.

Shouting the dog to come in when she’s already in.
Waiting at the bus stop and just hesitating enough as you are not 100% sure to put your arm out for the dark coloured van or one was a mini 😃

In a shop thinking, oh I need a sewing kit and its a cup when you pick it up. This is one of many.

Staring at something to make out what it is if you can’t pick it up is something I do everyday. My eyes seem to focus a second or two later..its like one of those magic pictures from years ago at times.

Thinking the dog is everywhere due to black blob.

Been shown a picture on a phone and saying ‘oh yeah’. Could be anything.

Posted in The Medical Stuff

Gene genie – Genetic macular conditions

Posted on by One Vision
2 women facing front holding pages. Lefthand Blonde woman has the words healthy eyes, carrier or Macular Dystrophy with a question mark. Righthand brown haired woman has a red cross with Macular Dystrophy text
Stargardt/Macular dystrophy is caused by faults in a gene known as ABCA4.

This gene provides the instructions for making an important protein that usually removes toxic by-products out of the light-sensing cells in the retina, at the back of the eye.. But when this protein is missing or faulty, these substances build up and form a fatty waste product called lipofuscin, in and around the macula that started to affect my central vision.

When faults in the ABCA4 gene or others are the cause of the condition, I will have inherited one faulty copy of the gene from each parent. My parents will have typically each carried one copy of the faulty gene but they did not have the disease themselves.

My sister seems to be ok thank goodness. She is 2 years younger. I asked my eye specialist on Thursday about her and if she isn\’t presenting problems now then hopefully looks like she got both the good eye genes from our parents. There are 3 possible outcomes. 2 healthy genes, 1 of each and 2 unhealthy genes. The latter is what I now know I received from my parents. One faulty gene from each.

Although having faults in ABCA4 is the most common cause of Macular dystrophy/Stargardts, a minority of people have faults in other genes.