Macular Pucker or Macular Degeneration

[ericf0529]

Hello, I am a 24 year old male, and was recently diagnosed as having a macular pucker over my right retina.  I first noticed the odd vision in Nov. 08 when I realized that blue "neon" colors like signs and the like looked dim in my right eye.  

I saw a doc in january who said I had a pucker and refered me to a Retina specialist. The specialist said that it looked like the scar tissue was old, and possibly related to a traumatic birth.  He said he would keep an eye on it and asked to see me again in 6 months.  In the 3 weeks since the appointment, I have noticed that I can, for the first time, see the distortions on the amsler grid, and that the distortions fluctuate from hour to hour and day to day.  Is this typical of pucker?  It sounds more like macular degeneration to me, and I am worried sick about it.  The vision is the worst when coming in from a bright light like the sun, into a darker room like my office.

I brought up that I thought it might be Macular Degeneration to the doc, and he said "nah, you don't have that".  However, I am not convinced....

Change in color perception, problems with going from light to dark, and fluctuating blurry vision, which goes from near fine, to almost unreadable blurriness in the same day.....  Do all these things sound like macular degeneration, or am I crazy?

Should I seek a second opinion?

If it is just a macular pucker, why would it get drastically better and worse in just a half of a day?

None of this makes sense to me, but I am worried, since I am already hard of hearing...

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

Macular degeneration in usually an older person's disease.  Although there are hereditary macular degenerations that can occur in the young, they tend to be bilateral.

The vision with macular pucker can fluctuate.  Also, a long standing scar can develop choroidal neovascularization which is the problem in wet age related macular degeneration.

Follow on a weekly basis with amlser gird and outline the area of distortion with a pencil.  If it get worse return sooner.


Dr. O.

[JodieJ]

Before I had surgery for a macular pucker, my acuity did vary somewhat in my affected eye--between 20/40 and 20/60, depending on the day and who was doing the testing.  But it certainly didn't go from "nearly fine" to very blurry, and there was always some distortion present.  It's my understanding that a macular pucker can be easily diagnosed using OCT images.  If this type of testing wasn't done, you might consider seeing a different retinal specialist for a second opinion.