Macular degeneration is an eye disease that can cause you to lose your central vision — what you see when you look straight ahead. Your vision depends on the health of your retina, which is the light-sensitive tissue in the back of your eye. Central vision in particular is controlled by the macula — the central part of the retina. When the macula is damaged, you can lose central vision.

Aging is the most common cause of macular degeneration. This is why macular degeneration is often referred to as age-related macular degeneration, or AMD.

All types of AMD can result in vision loss, but each may have different symptoms. Learning about the symptoms of each type of AMD can make it easier to recognize and seek diagnosis and treatment.

This article discusses the types of macular degeneration and how the symptoms of each type can differ.

What Are the Types of AMD?

Health care providers commonly classify AMD into two main categories that describe how AMD develops — dry and wet AMD.

The term “wet” refers to vision loss caused by blood vessels that leak fluid beneath the retina and into the retina. AMD without leaky blood vessels is referred to as “dry.” A subtype of dry AMD, called geographic atrophy, is an advanced stage of AMD.

All forms of AMD can cause central vision loss but may look and feel different. You can have more than one form of AMD at the same time. AMD always begins dry and sometimes becomes wet.

What Are the Symptoms of AMD?

You may not have any symptoms until more advanced stages of AMD. Vision changes in AMD may include:

• Difficulty seeing in low light
• Blurry vision
• Differences in the way colors appear
• Dark spots in your vision
• Straight edges appearing curvy or wavy
• Vision loss

You may develop AMD symptoms in one eye or both eyes. It’s also possible to have a different level of severity in each eye. Depending on what type of AMD you have, your symptoms and the severity of symptoms can differ.

Continue reading to learn more about the specific symptoms of each type of AMD.

Dry Macular Degeneration

Most people with AMD have only the dry form. About 90 percent of people with AMD have dry AMD. Dry AMD occurs when the light-sensitive cells in the macula slowly break down, leading to a gradual loss of central vision.

What Causes Symptoms of Dry AMD?

In dry AMD, a buildup of protein deposits called drusen causes the cells in your macula to deteriorate and die. As more cells die over time, the symptoms of dry AMD can get progressively worse.

What Are the Symptoms of Dry AMD?

Many people with dry AMD don’t have any symptoms. If you do have symptoms, they are usually mild.

In the early stage of dry AMD, your symptoms may include:

• Having trouble seeing in low-light conditions
• Needing more light to read

In the intermediate stage of dry AMD, your symptoms may be more noticeable, such as:

• Blurriness
• Distorted vision
• Mild to moderate decrease in your visual acuity (how clearly you see at a distance)
• The need for more time to adapt to the dark

Geographic Atrophy

Geographic atrophy is the late stage of dry AMD. If you have geographic atrophy, the cells in your macula begin to atrophy (waste away and eventually die). Advanced dry AMD is described as geographic atrophy because the areas of your macula that have atrophied can look like a map to your eye doctor when they look into your eye.

What Causes Symptoms of Geographic Atrophy?

When you have geographic atrophy, there are larger patches of dead cells in your macula, which cause more severe symptoms than in dry AMD.

What Are the Symptoms of Geographic Atrophy?

Geographic atrophy causes a slow loss of central vision, making it harder to see things clearly and perform everyday tasks. Here are common symptoms of geographic atrophy:

• Blank spots in your vision
• Larger area of blurriness in your central vision
• Difficulty reading
• Difficulty recognizing faces
• Loss of color vision
• Trouble seeing in low-light conditions

Wet Macular Degeneration

Wet macular degeneration is a less common and more severe type of AMD. Age-related macular degeneration always starts as dry AMD and sometimes becomes wet.

Wet AMD sometimes goes by different terms, including exudative AMD and neovascular AMD. These names refer to the fact that wet AMD involves the formation of new blood vessels (neovascularization) and blood and fluid leaking into the eye.

What Causes Symptoms of Wet AMD?

You can have wet AMD at the same time as the dry form or geographic atrophy. In the wet form, changes to your vision are related to the formation of abnormal blood vessels. These new blood vessels are fragile and prone to leaking blood and other fluids, which can damage your macula.

What Are the Symptoms of Wet AMD?

The symptoms of wet AMD can progress faster than in dry AMD or geographic atrophy. Severe vision loss may occur over days to weeks with wet AMD. If abnormal blood vessels suddenly leak into your macula, you may even have sudden vision loss in your central vision that occurs in just one day.

AMD doesn’t cause any pain in your eyes. The symptoms of wet AMD are similar to those of geographic atrophy, including:

• Blind spots in your central vision
• Straight lines that look curvy or wavy
• Loss of color vision
• Trouble seeing in low-light conditions

The main difference between the symptoms of wet AMD and geographic atrophy is that the symptoms of wet AMD develop more rapidly than geographic atrophy.

Monitoring Your Symptoms

It’s important to monitor your AMD symptoms so that you know when something changes. The symptoms of dry AMD and geographic atrophy typically develop gradually, making it difficult to detect. The symptoms of wet AMD happen over days to weeks and need urgent treatment to prevent permanent vision loss.

Your eye care professional may recommend that you use an Amsler grid daily to monitor your AMD symptoms. An Amsler grid is a square with a grid pattern and a dot in the middle. The grid pattern can help you recognize dark spots in your vision and distortions that may not be obvious to you. If you use the Amsler grid every day, it can help you detect changes in AMD symptoms at an early stage.

Regular comprehensive eye exams can help your eye doctor detect changes that may affect your vision before they start causing symptoms. Ask your eye doctor how often you need an eye exam.

Find Your Team

On myAMDteam, the social network for people with age-related macular degeneration and their loved ones, members come together to ask questions, give advice, and share their stories with those who understand.

Are you or a family member living with AMD? Do you have questions about this disease? Share them in a comment below or on your Activities page.