"I kept going back to the doctor telling him I couldn't read," Charles Wampler said. "I kept saying, 'I can't read.' I couldn't read."
Wampler knew something was wrong when he had to use a magnifying glass to get his daily news.
"I love to read a paper," he said. "But that's the only thing that I have noticed is that I am having trouble reading a paper."
Wampler was diagnosed with age-related dry macular degeneration, or dry AMD. The disease causes a layer of tissue behind the retina to wear out. Blood vessels abnormally grow through that weak layer, causing swelling and scarring, as well as a gradual loss of vision.
"As it dies, it erodes these areas and you get bigger and bigger geographic areas," Dr. David Brown said. "And if it goes into your center, you can't read."
Wampler knew his golf game could soon be affected as well. So, he joined a clinical trial for a new eye drop called hydergine.
"It's an antioxidant," Dr. Brown said. "It's kind of like an eye drop vitamin."
The drops go in four times a day. Wampler's not sure if he's getting the real deal or the placebo, but he says it's worth it.
"It's a gamble I took to try to help myself and to help somebody else down the road," he said.
Researchers are also testing another drop to fight wet macular degeneration, the most severe form of AMD. It also causes an overgrowth of blood vessels behind the retina.
"And that makes acuity drop," Dr. Brown said. "People go blind in a hurry."
Currently, the only treatment for wet AMD is a series of injections into the eye. While it's too early to tell if either of drug will be effective, doctors are hopeful, and so is Wampler.
"This study will not only help me, but it will help a lot of people behind me, younger than me," he said. "Then it's worth everything we are doing to do the study."
Brown says it will be at least two years before the research and the data show if the drops are effective.
