Judith’s story

Eye Injections combat Macular Degeneration

For four years, Judith Ellis has had to have injections in her eyes to combat macular degeneration. Now she’s encouraging others with eye trouble to act fast, no matter how small the problem may seem.

“My dad had MD for 20 years and they didn’t have any help for it in those days” Judith says. My mum, at age 64, got her license because he couldn’t drive and drove him for those twenty years all around New Zealand.”

“Having known it was in my genes, I always had regular eye tests. Then one day I noticed a fault in my right eye, something that looked like a dot.”

“When this happened with my sight, I got it checked straight away and they sent me immediately to the Hamilton Eye Clinic. It was discovered that the blood vessel behind the eye had burst and that was wet macular degeneration”

For four years Judith has been having intravitreal injections in her eyes every seven weeks. Drops are first put in to anaesthetise the eyes. Her vision returns to normal after five hours but it can take up to 48 hours to feel normal again.

She said “sometimes I don’t even feel it. Other times I do. It’s relatively painless but it does vary from time to time.”

“There’s no cure, you can only be treated. But the injections have been extremely successful and I can still drive, still carry on with normal things.”

“My advice to anyone is, if you find anything that’s untoward with your eyes, get them checked immediately because it’s so well worth it”.

Judith says she has had the best of treatment and was warned that if she hadn’t had it, she would be blind in her right eye by now.