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Medical Author:

John D. Sheppard, MD, MMSc

Medical Editor:

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, Chief Medical Editor

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, Chief Medical Editor

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, is a U.S. board-certified Anatomic Pathologist with subspecialty training in the fields of Experimental and Molecular Pathology. Dr. Stöppler's educational background includes a BA with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia and an MD from the University of North Carolina. She completed residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Georgetown University followed by subspecialty fellowship training in molecular diagnostics and experimental pathology.

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Symptoms of age-related macular degeneration include the following:

• Blurred or decreased central close-up and distance vision, which is often delayed because patients subconsciously ignore the eye with worst vision prior to development of the condition in the previously good eye.
• Blind spots, or scotomas, are a direct result of lost macular function.
• Straight lines look irregular or bent, called metamorphopsia, and objects appear a different color or shape in each of the eyes.
• Objects appearing smaller in one eye than the other, called micropsia, may also indicate a swelling and bulging of the macula, leading to a greater distance between the individual photoreceptors, which in turn causes the brain to interpret the object as smaller than seen by the good eye.

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