1. Smoked from age 18-25. Mother smoked. I didn’t know about MD and smoking but I knew smoking was bad.
2. Always was a sun worshiper. I wore sunglasses most of the time but I’m not sure they really helped. And of course I knew about skin cancer but I didn’t know about macular degeneration and sun.
3. My diet has always been very good in terms of vitamins and minerals. I just have always had a little bit of a trouble with quantity. And I probably always eat too much sugar. I know I eat too much sugar!
4. My family was very small. My mother and father were both only children. And both of them died before age 60. And three of my four grandparents died by age 65. So I didn’t know of any person in my family with macular degeneration probably because they didn’t live long enough to develop it. I developed it at age 78.
As I said in an earlier post I found out that I had the genetic possibility of macular degeneration from both parents when I took the 23 and me genetic test. But that was only three years ago. And I still didn’t have a definite indication that I would develop macular degeneration.
I want to do some research on the factors that affect the development of macular degeneration. But I really don’t think I ever would’ve live my life differently if I known macular degeneration was a part of the possibilities from sun and smoking.
Elaine