vision-protection

The Pros & Cons of Laser Treatments for AMD (Wet and Dry)

Wed, 06 Jul 2022 14:39:47 GMT

Vision Protection Therapy for AMD: Not Your Grandfather’s Laser Treatment

“Don’t do laser treatments for your macular degeneration! It’s dangerous. It will only make it worse.”

Many patients considering Vision Protection Therapy for their age-related macular degeneration (AMD) have heard this from well-meaning friends or — unfortunately — even their eye doctors. So why does the Vision Protection Institute recommend laser treatment to prevent vision loss from AMD when your other doctors warn against it?

Are laser treatments like Vision Protection Therapy dangerous?

Not anymore. But before we dive into how and why, it’s important to first understand that the word “laser” does not describe a single process or outcome — it’s a technology. “Laser” stands for “linearly amplified stimulated emission radiation.” Put simply, lasers are just specially-formed beams of light. They are incredibly versatile: Lasers can cut diamonds, shoot down airplanes, weld metal, visualize atomic nuclei and print novels.

But in ophthalmology, lasers were historically used in the retina for one thing only: Burning, AKA “photocoagulation.” You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand that burning your retina is dangerous and can worsen the health of your eye and vision, yet ophthalmologists used photocoagulation as a “treatment” for over 50 years. Even today, most optometrists and ophthalmologists still believe that photocoagulation is used in modern laser retinal treatments.

That sounds scary. As patients, we trust our doctors to be up-to-date on the latest science and recommend treatment that will help us, not harm us. We’ll explore the many reasons why your doctor may believe that all laser retinal treatments are damaging below, but here’s the bottom line: They simply don’t know that Vision Protection Therapy exists.

How is Vision Protection Therapy different?

Vision Protection Therapy was born over 20 years ago when Jeffrey K. Luttrull, MD, founder of the Vision Protection Institutes, discovered that retinal laser treatment could be done safely — without photocoagulation — to improve retinal health and function. Working alongside physicist David B. Chang, PhD, Dr. Luttrull performed extensive research to better understand laser retinal treatment and possibilities it holds. What Drs. Luttrull and Chang discovered was groundbreaking: Dr. Luttrull’s patented advanced laser technology (SDM) activates the body’s immune system to “reprogram” the retina and repair damage. Imagine the ability to reset your retinal cells to default the way you’d reset a lagging smartphone. Vision Protection Therapy makes it possible!

Dr. Luttrull’s research proved that photocoagulation was not only ineffective and damaging, it was also entirely unnecessary. Through rigorous clinical studies, it became clear that SDM retinal laser treatment — now called Vision Protection Therapy — could treat and prevent vision loss from all the most common causes of irreversible visible loss: The chronic progressive retinal diseases of dry and wet AMD, diabetic retinopathy, inherited retinal diseases, and open angle glaucoma. Many of these diseases, like dry AMD, have no other highly effective treatment. Vision Protection Therapy can treat them all because — despite their differences — they are all from the same family of diseases called “neurodegenerations”. Vision Protection Therapy targets the shared traits of neurodegenerations to improve your vision and improve the health and function of your macula (the center of the retina affected by AMD) immediately.

Because the treatment is safe, healing and restorative, Vision Protection Therapy can be regularly repeated to maintain the positive effects. Published peer-reviewed studies have shown that, in patients who receive regular Vision Protection Therapy year after year, progression of AMD can be slowed and the risks of visual loss reduced significantly. How significantly? Vision Protection Therapy has been found to be 1,300% more than sole use of the only other treatment for AMD, AREDS vitamins.

So, if Vision Protection Therapy is both safe and effective, why do so many doctors still believe laser treatments are universally dangerous to your retinal health? Why doesn’t your eye doctor know that modern laser therapies are healing and restorative, not damaging and destructive?

Why hasn’t my doctor mentioned Vision Protection Therapy?

Think about how much new information you encounter each day. Between your email, social media, TV, podcasts, news outlets and all the apps on your phone, you couldn’t possibly read and retain everything that’s available to you. Instead, you make choices about what to read, what to learn more about, and how to spend your time. Even then, you barely scratch the surface of what’s out there.

Doctors have the same struggle, and their day-to-day also factors in the availability of new scientific studies and research. Because Vision Protection Therapy is the first and only proven-safe and effective laser retinal therapy — and the first new use of laser technology in ophthalmology in decades — there is a good possibility that your doctor simply has not heard of Vision Protection Therapy yet.

Between the industry’s long standing belief that laser treatments are always harmful — and, therefore, no further time or resources should be spent researching ways to eliminate that harm — and the pharmaceutical industry’s chokehold on dispensing information regarding new treatments, it is very difficult for doctors to learn about Vision Protection Therapy’s state-of-the-art, proven-safe treatment unless they are actively looking for alternatives to the status quo. But this does not mean that Vision Protection Therapy is not effective, safe and clinically tested; it simply means it is new. And there is no one more qualified to administer this new treatment than the experts at the Vision Protection Institutes — the very same experts who developed and perfected Vision Protection Therapy over the course of 20 years.

Why should I choose the Vision Protection Institutes to treat my AMD?

AMD is the leading cause of irreversible visual loss globally, but Vision Protection Therapy was invented to change that. With over two decades of extensive research into SDM laser therapy, retinal health, and vision loss from progressive eye disease, the Vision Protection Institutes offer a depth of experience, expertise and knowledge that simply cannot be matched anywhere else in the world. Talk to your friends and eye doctor about Vision Protection Therapy, and encourage them to learn more. But you don’t need to wait for them to catch up to start doing all you can to treat your AMD and prevent vision loss: Call the Vision Protection Institutes today. We’re ready to help you see all of your tomorrows.

Prevention of neovascular AMD: Real world efficacy of program of panmacular laser for vision protection.

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 20:20:04 GMT

SDM Vision Protection Therapy in the treatment of AMD: What We Know

In 2015, we reported reversal of anti-VEGF drug tolerance in eyes with wet AMD using panmacular SDM. This was the first — and as yet, only — report of reversal of drug tolerance in the history of medicine, clinically or in the lab. In this study, we described the “reset to default” theory of retinal laser action that we used to predict that SDM would reverse drug tolerance. Luttrull JK, Chang DB, Margolis BWL, Dorin G, Luttrull DK. Laser re-sensitization of medically unresponsive neovascular age-related macular degeneration: Efficacy and implications. Retina 2015 Jun; 35(6): 1184-1194.

This powerful confirmation of the reset theory led to several other studies, ultimately demonstrating the effectiveness of regular periodic panmacular SDM (Vision Protection Therapy) at preventing neovascular conversion in AMD. Read on to learn more about these promising studies on the efficacy of Vision Protection Therapy for the prevention of vision loss from AMD.

2016 Study: Findings Suggest SDM Treatment Improves Retinal Function, Slows Disease Progression

In 2016, 158 eyes of 108 consecutive patients with dry AMD were reported, tested by various methods after panmacular subthreshold diode micropulse (SDM) treatme nt. Luttrull JK, Margolis BWL. Functionally guided retinal protective therapy as prophylaxis for age-related and inherited retinal degenerations. A pilot study. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2016 Jan 1;5 7(1):265-75. doi: 10.1167/iovs.15-18163

SDM is a specific application of MPL that uses a uniform treatment in all eyes, including identical laser parameters, treatment area (panmacular), and number of laser spot applications. Laser parameters are chosen to achieve effective treatment while precluding the possibility of laser-induced retinal damage (LIRD). Thus, there are no reports of adverse treatment effects or LIRD by any means of detection following SDM. There was no notable effect of treatment on macular morphology or drusen.

Following SDM MPL, retinal function measured by pattern electroretinography (PERG) was significantly improved (p=0.0001); and visual function improved by microperimetry (P=0.0439) and contrast acuity (p=0.006). These findings suggested that functional testing combined with SDM MPL, sublethal to the retina, by improving retinal and visual function and thus reversing disease progression, might serve as a useful surrogate indicator of long-term slowed disease progression and reduced risks of vision loss.

2018 Study: SDM Treatment for High-Risk AMD Results in Low Incidence of New CNV Development

In 2018, the effect of SDM MPL on the incidence of neovascular conversion in eyes with dry AMD was reported. Luttrull JK, Sinclair SH, Elmann S, Glaser BM. Low incidence of choroidal neovascularization following subthreshold diode micropulse laser (SDM) for high-risk AMD. PLoS ONE 2018 13(8): e0202097. https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0202097 . This retrospective study examined all eyes with dry AMD in a vitreoretinal practice in which regular periodic panmacular SDM (Vision Protection Therapy) was offered in addition to conventional care to try to slow disease progression and reduce vision loss. This study included 547 eyes of 363 patients treated between 2008 and 2017. Risk factors in this patient cohort were especially high, with an average age of 84 years, RPD in 39%, fellow eye CNV in 23%, and AREDS category 3 and 4 AMD in 78%. Despite these high risks, with follow up ranging from 6-108 months (avg. 22), new CNV developed in 9/547 eyes (1.6%, annualized rate 0.87%), and age-adjusted reduction in the expected incidence of new CNV of between 95-98%. Patients suffering neovascular conversion average 82 years with an average AREDS category in the treated eye of 3.2 and fellow eye of 3.7. 5/9 converting eyes had NAMD in the fellow eye. 8/9 had RPD in both eyes. Neither smoking nor systemic hypertension were risk factors for conversion, likely due to the small number of conversions observed. Over the study period there was no notable effect of treatment on macular drusen.

2020 Study: Less-Advanced AMD Likely to Respond Better to SDM Treatment

The effect of SDM on progression of GA was then studied, examining the eyes with GA in this same cohort of eyes with AMD treated by regular periodic SDM. (78) 67 eyes of 49 patients with GA were identified for study, documented an average 2.5 years prior to initial SDM treatment, and an average 2.2 years after beginning SDM every 3-4 months. These were high-risk eyes — the same type that worsened following SRT and 2RT nanosecond laser treatment. The average age of this group was 86 years old. 78% of eyes had coincident RPD.

Reported in 2020, the rate of radial GA progression slowed after SDM treatment from an average annual rate of 137um to 73um per year, a 47% per year decline in annual progression rate. There was no LIRD or adverse treatment effects. GA lesions with a diameter of <1000um at the time of first treatment slowed nearly twice the average rate, although this dif ference was not statistically significant due to the small number of eyes.

However, this observation suggests that — as one might expect — with GA, less advanced disease may respond better to treatment than more advanced disease. Luttrull JK, Sinclair SH, Elmann S, Chang DB, Kent D. Slowed progression of age-related geographic atrophy following subthreshold laser. Clin Ophthalmol (2020) Oct 1;14:2983-2993.

2021 Study: Findings Suggest SDM May Effectively Prevent Vision Loss from AMD and Reduce Quantity of Anti-VEGF Injections Necessary When Used in Combination

A retrospective study of the results of a novel procedure in a single practice, especially one that reports remarkable results, should be taken with caution.The potential for various biases is high. Mitigating factors were the all-comers nature of the study cohort, excellent long-term follow up, uniform nature of the treatment, and robust binary results . To challenge the results of the first study showing an age-adjusted reduction in the expected incidence of new CNV in AMD by 95-98% per year in a very high-risk population, a second study was performed.

In this study, the effect of regular periodic panmacular SDM (“vision protection therapy”, or VPT) on neovascular conversion in dry AMD was examined using real world data (RWD). Vestrum Health, Inc (Naperville, Ill, USA) (VH) aggregates patient unidentified data from over 300 retina practices in the United States. Member practices are provided monthly benchmarking reports and given access to the database for analyses. All eyes in the VH database with ICD 9 and 10 codes for dry AMD between January 2016 and September 2021 were examined. Inclusions included, in addition to dry AMD, age of 50 years or more. The comparator was whether they were treated with standard care alone (SCA) (AREDS vitamins, hypertension control, smoking cessation and healthy lifestyle and nutritional advice) vs the addition of VPT to standard care. Exclusions were various diagnoses that may require intravitreal injection such as diabetes mellitus and retinal vascular occlusion, and diagnoses that predispose to CNV, such as prior macular photocoagulation, high or degenerative myopia and ocular histoplasmosis.

Because data included ICD 9 coding which did not stratify AMD beyond wet or dry, dry AMD subtyping could not be performed. Patients were then matched by propensity scoring for identifiable risk factors, including age, sex, systemic hypertension, smoking and use of AREDS vitamins. Patients were also matched for the number of clinical encounters, as a clinical encounter was required to identify and make the diagnosis of conversion, and thus represented an independent risk factor. Confirmation of neovascular conversion required both a new ICD 9 or 10 diagnosis of neovascular AMD and initiation of anti-VEGF therapy. Using the Match-it program, the study groups were matched in a 1/10 ratio for statistical analysis with 830 eyes in the VPT group, and 8,300 in the SCA group for a total study group of 9,130 eyes.

Over the 4.75 year study window, eyes receiving VPT in addition to standard care were significantly less likely to suffer neovascular conversion than eyes managed by SCA (Hazard ratio 13.04). Over the same period, the average VA of VPT eyes improved, while the VA of SCA eyes progressively worsened.

The effect of VPT on management of eyes already being treated with anti-VEGF injections for neovascular AMD was also examined. Compared to eyes managed with injections alone, eyes that received VPT in addition to anti-VEGF injections required 69% fewer injections to achieve the same visual results. Luttrull JK, Gray G. Prevention of neovascular AMD: Real world efficacy of program of panmacular laser for vision protection. Researchgate.net (2021). Online preprint: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349952308_Prevention_of_neovascular_AMD_Real_world_efficacy_of_program_of_panmacular_laser_for_vision_protection

2022 & Beyond: Looking to the Future

Finally, a newer 2022 RWD study, currently in manuscript, included ICD 10 code matching for dry AMD subtypes, matching over 7,300 patients for all AMD risk factors, and confirms the prior RWD study. This 2022 study shows Vision Protection Therapy is markedly superior to standard care with AREDS vitamins alone.

The preponderance of evidence that Vision Protection Therapy is effective in the treatment of AMD is a result of decades of clinical and scientific research, and our understanding of its healing, restorative properties grows by the day. Dr. Luttrull and his colleagues continue to study and report promising findings providing that SMD therapy can “turn back the clock” on AMD. We encourage you to check back regularly for exciting updates on this groundbreaking development in retinal health.

How do you prevent AMD (Wet and Dry) from getting worse?

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 17:58:20 GMT

Q: My grandmother was blind from macular degeneration. I don’t want that to happen to me. What can I do?

A: Just like in other areas of life, there are some things you can do to prevent macular degeneration — and others that are simply out of your control.

The good news is that macular degeneration doesn’t make people completely blind. However, it can make you legally blind. This means macular degeneration can make your vision so blurry and bad that you can’t see clearly, can’t recognize faces, read, or drive. While legal blindness is not quite the same as utter blindness, it’s still an undesirable outcome for your vision.

Knowing the limitations that vision loss from macular degeneration could place on your life, it makes perfect sense to want to do all you can to prevent it. But there are some factors related to your chances of developing macular degeneration that were determined well before you became aware of your risk, through no fault of your own.

Thanks, Mom & Dad: Family History Factors In

In strictly genetic diseases, your genes make a black-or-white choice on your behalf: Either you have the gene that triggers the disease in question, or you don’t. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is more complicated than that. AMD is considered a “multifactorial” disease, which is exactly what it sounds like: That many things contribute to an individual developing AMD. The main inheritance factor is relatively simple: If your parents and grandparents had AMD and you look something like them, you may also be at risk. One of the main risk factors is race, with Caucasian people having the highest risk of developing AMD. Asian and Hispanic people can also be affected by AMD, which Black individuals are the least likely to develop the disease. Fair skin, blue eyes, and sunburning easily generally go with a higher risk of AMD, but it is important to note that no one, regardless of race, has zero risk of developing AMD.

Other genes, particularly those dealing with our immune systems and our tendency to develop chronic inflammation, may also predispose an individual to suffer vision loss from AMD. Chronic inflammation is one of the main symptoms of both aging and chronic disease, including AMD. While genetic testing can identify certain genes that may predispose individuals to AMD and vision loss, there are no gene therapy treatments for them yet.

Less Risky Business: Lifestyle Changes Can Improve Your Risk

While there are significant parts of your AMD risk that are out of your control, there is a bright side to AMD being multifactorial: Other elements of the health of your vision are very much in your control. here are some important things you can do to decrease your risk of AMD and vision loss:

Age Well. There’s little we can do about the “age-related” component of age-related macular degeneration — we should all be so lucky as to age! But aging well — i.e. keeping general good health, staying active, and reducing stress — can help to reduce your risk.Stress causes inflammation and accelerates aging, so finding healthy ways to reduce the stressors in your life is a very valid preventative step.

Say ‘No’ to Smoking. Don’t start smoking. If you already smoke, quit. We’re all familiar with the damage smoking causes to lung tissue, but are you aware that smoking damages your eyes and vision, too? Smoking is quite literally the worst thing you could do for your eyes, and for your risk of developing AMD. If you’re serious about protecting your vision, it’s time to get serious about kicking smoking, too.

Get an Eye Exam. If you’re over 50 and have a family history of AMD, or symptoms like blurred or distorted vision, difficulty reading or seeing at night or in normal indoor lighting, get an eye exam with an MD ophthalmologist trained to diagnose AMD. Examination by a trained physician is the only way to know with certainty whether you have AMD.

Eat For Your Eyes. A diet rich in leafy green vegetables and anti-oxidants like olive oil can significantly reduce your risks of AMD and vision loss. Many of the risk factors for AMD are the same as heart disease, so fewer steaks smothered in butter and more spinach salads with vinaigrette is a meal plan worth considering.

So, You Have AMD: Is Vision Loss Always Next?

Most people with AMD lose vision when they develop “wet” AMD. When this happens, scar tissue, swelling and sometimes bleeding occur in the most sensitive part of the retina of the eye, called the “macula.” This can happen suddenly and destroy your sharp, central vision. If you develop wet AMD, there are effective drugs that can help prevent more vision loss — but these drugs are very expensive and delivered via an injection into your eye every month for the rest of your life. Clearly, there’s a better alternative to painful eye injections: Preventing the need for them altogether.

The only vitamin recipe known to effectively reduce the risk of vision loss from AMD is the “Age-Related Eye Disease Study” (AREDS) recipe. In its namesake study, the AREDS vitamin recipe reduced the risk of developing advanced AMD by about 5% per year, primarily by reducing the risk of dry AMD turning into wet AMD. recently, AREDS vitamins were the only medical treatment available to help reduce AMD vision loss, even though they do not slow the progression of AMD. Patients had to accept the minor reduction of risk as being better than none at all, even though the risk improvement rates were almost imperceptibly small..

The Future of AMD & Vision Loss: Profoundly Powerful Prevention

But all that changed when Vision Protection TherapyTM was developed. Vision Protection Therapy is a treatment that is both safe and highly effective in slowing the progression of AMD, reducing the chronic inflammation that makes AMD worse, and reducing the risks of vision loss and wet AMD. Vision Protection Therapy is a proprietary program based on over twenty years of clinical experience and hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific publications. It is scientifically designed and proven to markedly reduce the risk of developing wet AMD and visual loss from AMD. Vision Protection Therapy employs advanced SDMTM laser treatment to harmlessly activate your immune system’s natural mechanisms of repair and restoration in the eye, turning back the clock on your AMD and reversing the disease process — all without any side effects. When patients receive SDM treatment on a regular basis, improved retinal health and function is maintained, significantly minimizing the risk of wet AMD. How significantly? In a national study of nearly400,000 patients with dry AMD from which over 9,000 were carefully matched and compared, Vision Protection Therapy was 13 times more effective than AREDS vitamins alone. That means that patients receiving Vision Protection Therapy were 1,300% less likely to develop vision loss from wet AMD than people who didn’t get Vision Protection Therapy.

We all want to feel that we have control over our health, especially as we age. Vision Protection Therapy is one way you can take your risk of developing vision loss from AMD into your own hands. If you have AMD or are concerned about your risk for developing AMD, Vision Protection Therapy is the most effective thing you can do to reduce your risk of vision loss. The Vision Protection Institutes are dedicated to empowering our patients with clearer vision for life by preventing vision loss from AMD, and we’re here to answer your questions about Vision Protection Therapy. Give us a call today and ensure you’ll see all your tomorrows.

What do Google, Methuselah and Vision Protection Therapy have in common?

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 17:04:47 GMT

In the early chapters of the Genesis, people lived for hundreds of years. The world champ was Methuselah, clocking in at 969 years. Such longevity would be a nightmare for Medicare and Social Security! But according to Moses, this kind of longevity was pretty routine back then. Ever since then, mankind —especially rich and powerful men — have sought to get that longevity back.

What can we learn from this? Well, it should come as no surprise that the rich and powerful are prone to thinking of themselves as godlike. But it may surprise you to know that biologists have long noted there is no biological reason man should not be able to live as long as Methuselah— or even longer. Incredible life span is programmed into our cells. All that is needed is to change or “fix” that program is to remove the current limits and restore the pre-Babel settings.

Altos Labs is a tech start-up described as an “instant unicorn.” Before its first day of business, it has taken in over $3 billion in investment capital. The investors? Rumors suggest the founders of Google, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and many other ultra-wealthy tech, financial and political types are the key investors. Why such interest in Altos Labs? Because its goal is to discover the means to human immortality — or, failing that, Mathuselian longevity.

How do they plan to do this? With drugs.

The drugs they hope to develop will target the USR (endoplasmic reticular unfolded protein stress response) and ISR (integrated stress response) systems in the body that help maintain cell homeostasis. By activating the USR and ISR, Altos Labs hopes to prevent cells from breaking down by “resetting” the cell to its “factory settings” when it begins to degrade from aging and disease. In theory, a “full reset” would stimulate stem cells to become new cells of a particular type to replace the old, dying ones. However, a “full reset” can get out of hand and lead to problems like cancer,. so Altos aims to accomplish a “partial” reset instead. A partial reset would simply fix the cell to keep it operational, rather than replacing it altogether.

It’s a great idea.The problem? It (probably) won’t work — and it’s already been done.

The New York Times reports that the complexity of climate prediction exceeds the capability of any supercomputer to model. (Sunday Feb 6, 2022) In comparison, human biology makes weather seem simple. There are about 2,000 different types of proteins in any particular cell in the body. These proteins are folded into unique shapes that allow them to do critical and specific tasks to keep the cell running normally. Anything you do to one of these proteins eventually affects every other protein in the cell, and thus the health and function of the cell, for good or ill. This is the “butterfly effect.” The butterfly effect (first coined, interestingly enough, from the complexity of weather forecasting) posits that a butterfly flapping its wings or turning left instead of right in the Amazonian jungle will eventually have an effect of the election of the Swedish prime minister a year later. Everything is connected, and cannot be isolated or separated from everything else. For those 2,000 proteins, there are 10680 possible interactions which will necessarily take place as the result of tweaking any one of them. At a femtosecond pace, the universe is not old enough to run through all the possible interactions resulting from one protein tweak in just one cell.

The main side effect of any targeted drug therapy is “unintended consequences”. There is no way to know, or take into account, the ultimate outcomes caused by even the most well-intended drug. Despite that, there are a very limited number of ways for a drug to be both effective and safe: 1) pick the right target, 2) hit the target the way you want to, and 3) pray that if you miss the target, which you likely will, the unintended consequences are actually more helpful than harmful (studies show that nearly all cancer chemotherapy drugs don’t do what they claim to do by targeting. They actually miss their targets but still eliminate cancer cells simply by virtue of being extremelypoisonous).

Unfortunately, all the genius and money in the world is unlikely to crack the nut of finding a safe and effective longevity drug. But all is not lost.,

Vision Protection Therapy™

Vision Protection Therapy™ (VPT) already recognizes, understands, and implements much of what the titans of modern technology hope to discover with their $3 billion Altos Labs investment. That’s because the founder of the Vision Protection Institutes, Jeffrey K Luttrull, MD, discovered the “reset” approach to improving health and longevity 20 years ago, describing its use to prevent vision loss from chronic age-related eye diseases like AMD in his many peer-reviewed scientific articles over the past 2 decades. Rather than seeking homeostasis, VPT achieves the arguably more difficult task of homeotrophy, the act of restoring health and normal function to sick and abnormal cells. VPT does this by “turning back the clock” on retinal cell dysfunction via the Reset to DefaultTM effect of its advanced SDMTM laser technology. SDM is the basis of Vicion Protection Therapy, and rather than trying to outsmart nature with targeted drug therapy, it uses nature by safely activating the body’s own mechanisms for repair and restoration. These include the USR and ISR systems, in addition to many others. By engagingtheseinfinitely complex restorative processes with SDM,the body’s buikt-in healing systems begin to do what they were designed to do Restore health and function safely, effectively, and without unintended consequences. That means no side effects or complications. This is because SDM simply hits the “fix it” switch. The otherwise insurmountable complexity of the body is then put to work for you, as nature intended. That is SDMTM Vision Protection TherapyTM: An elegant solution to an infinitely complex problem.

Save your next $3 billion and put Vision Protection Therapy to work for you. Turn back the clock on your AMD by hitting the reset button to reverse ageing damage and decrease your risks of age-related vision loss. It couldn’t be more sensible, or more natural — just ask Methuselah.

What treatments are available for those who have Wet and Dry AMD?

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 17:07:56 GMT

“Wet” AMD occurs when someone with dry AMD develops scar tissue growth in the macula, the center of the retina responsible for sharp vision. This scar tissue damages the macula, resulting in the loss of sharp vision. Distorted, wavy vision is one of the first signs of wet AMD .

Eventually, central vision may become just a big, grey blur. If wet AMD isn’t treated promptly and continued, good vision will be lost permanently, along with the ability to recognize faces, drive, and read. Every person with dry AMD is at risk to develop wet AMD, but people who have more severe AMD are at greater risk.

The risk of wet AMD increases rapidly with age, and those already with wet AMD in one eye have a very high risk of getting wet AMD in the other eye.

Below is a list of the top 3 treatments are available for those who have Wet and Dry AMD:

AREDS Vitamins
Anti-VEGF Drugs
Vision Protection Therapy

AREDS Vitamins

A large clinical trial, called the “ Age-Related Eye Disease Study ”, or AREDS, found that a combination of certain antioxidant vitamins could reduce the risk of developing wet AMD by about 4% per year. AREDS vitamins do not slow progression of AMD. This 4% risk reduction isn’t very much, but in the absence of any other effective treatment, it was better than nothing. In the absence of any better treatment, AREDS vitamins have been the “standard of care” for many years to treat dry AMD.

Anti-VEGF Drugs

One of the most important advances in the treatment of wet AMD has been the development of drugs that stop the growth and activity of macular scar tissue in wet AMD. These drugs are called “anti-VEGF (for vascular endothelial growth factor) drugs. To control wet AMD and try to prevent further visual loss, these drugs need to be injected directly into the eye.

Since they don’t last very long, these injections need to be repeated, usually every 4-6 weeks, for the rest of the patient’s life. Eventually some people can stop the injections, but it is not common and the wet AMD can return at any time to cause further visual loss. When someone needs an injection for wet AMD currently, there is no other effective substitute.

Vision Protection Therapy

At the Vision Protection Institutes we like common sense. In medicine, we know that the best way to keep good vision is to not lose it in the first place. So, we are dedicated to prevention. Once vision is lost, it rarely comes back, even with the best treatment. Vision Protection Therapy is the first treatment to safely and with great effectiveness prevent vision loss in AMD by preventing the development of wet AMD.

Vision Protection prevents wet AMD by improving the health and function of the retina. It does this by activating the first responders of your immune system, called “heat shock proteins”. These then trigger healing reactions through your eye and body to protect the retina and “turn back the clock” on your AMD. In animal studies, the special laser treatment employed by Vision Protection Therapy, called “SDM”, activated stem cells in the retina and caused them to come from other parts of the body to the retina to heal it.

How well does Vision Protection Therapy work? In two large clinical studies involving thousands of patients treated for years, Vision Protection Therapy reduced the risk of developing wet AMD and vision loss by between 93-98% per year. It does this safely and simply, without discomfort or any side effects. Compare this to just 4% per year for AREDS vitamins. Nothing in medicine is 100%. But Vision Protection Therapy comes pretty close.

But what if you already have wet AMD? Can Vision Protection Therapy do anything for you? Yes - in two ways. First, Vision Protection Therapy has been shown in published studies to slow progression of dry AMD. Since patients with wet AMD already have dry AMD, the “dry” part can continue to worsen even if they get wet AMD.

Vision Protection Therapy can slow this progression to help preserve vision. In addition, when Vision Protection therapy is combined with injections for wet AMD, patients need an average of 69% fewer injections. This is because Vision Protection Therapy makes the injections work better. If they work better, they last longer.

If they last longer, you don’t need as many. Common sense. Nobody likes getting shots in their eyes. Vision Protection Therapy can significantly reduce the number of injections needed if you already have wet AMD. By reducing injections, Vision Protection Therapy can also reduce the risks of complications that can occur from these injections, such as potentially blinding infections and glaucoma.

Vision Protection: Safe. Simple. Effective. Common sense prevention for the most common causes of visual loss from AMD. The only treatment helpful for all forms and stages of AMD.