An amsler grid can be helpful in early or mild stages. Usually, in
moderate or end stage picking up any changes with the grid
would be more difficult. I'll always give and instruct all of my
patients with early armd an amsler grid for them to look at it on a
regular basis.

frank

In the case of ARM, the static fields are the best way to monitor
progression. Find an OD that practices optometric phototherapy and they
can do a more sensitive test to evaluate the central field than a field
screener.

Remember to supplement your diet with multivitamins, especially
vitamins A, C and E, zinc, lutein and any other anti-oxidant you can
get.

Also eat as much green leafy vegetables as you can. Cabbage, lettuce,
spinach, parsley, broccoli and brussel sprouts are full of anti-oxidant
compounds which are readily absorbed by the body.

dr grant

The visual field test is the major method of monitoring your glaucoma,
it is equivalent to the doctor checking your blood pressure when
treating you for hypertension. The only ways to monitor disease
progression in glaucoma are vision field test and direct nerve fiber
imaging tests (at least twice the cost of a field).  It is not just a
way for the doctor to make money.

Glaucoma is a disease of the optic nerve in which some of the nerve
fibers in the nerve are damaged and die; the loss of nerve fibers leads
to visual field loss.  Although the disease is often accompanied by
elevated pressure in the eye and using drops that lower the pressure
slows the nerve fiber loss, the pressure alone does not define the
disease.  In other words, knowing that your pressure is normal does not
mean that you do not have disease or progression of disease.

If your visual field loss is progressing, your eye doctor will modify
your treatment.  Modification could be adding another drop, changing
the current drops, adding an oral agent or doing one of several
surgical treatments.  What is done will depend upon the details of your
particular case.  Cannibis is unlikely, as the few controlled studies
with it didn't find it to be very effective and the side effects are
dramatic.

Dr Judy