With the Covid-19 interrupting our daily life, patients have to restrict the frequency to visit a doctor’s office. Practicing acupressure is very critical to lower your eye pressure and bring the blood flow to your retina. If you can practice acupressure and taking Chinese herbs for a few weeks every day, you can clear up the inflammation in your retina and improve your vision with less frequent eyeball injection, which does not help to speed up the regeneration of the neurons in your retina. You can learn how to do acupressure online with LI Zheng by setting up an online consultation. Please visit bostonchineseacupuncture.org and click online consultation.

Macular degeneration is an age-related vision problem. The part of the retina which is responsible for central vision has many nerve cells and blood vessels. If you want to keep your vision in a relatively good condition when you reach 90 years old, you need to have healthy blood vessels and nerves. If you consume too much salt and sugar every day and do not have sufficient exercise, your blood vessels and optic nerves will not function well. The aging of your retina will accelerate. The other organ which has a similar structure with a lot of nerves and blood vessels in the penis. Only if a man has very healthy blood vessels and nerve cells can he have a strong erection. That is why impotence and macular degeneration share many similarities.

Klein R et al. published a paper in American Journal of Ophthalmology in 2004 indicating that macular degeneration and impotence have similar risk factors, such as diabetes, hypertension, stroke, chronic kidney disease, sleep apnea, alcohol intake, smoking, low testosterone, hyperparathyroidism, atherosclerosis, high cholesterol and cardiovascular disease. All of those risk factors can compromise the blood flow to your retina, your testicles, joints and brain. In order to avoid those conditions, you need to eat more fruits and vegetables and avoid all the factors causing inflammation of the blood vessels and nerves, such as spicy food, high salt, high sugar, too much dark chocolate and too much nuts.

Dr. Harun Cakmak et al. did research on the relationship between Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Erectile Dysfunction. They found that 64.8% of the control group had some degree of erectile dysfunction (ED) and, of them, 31.4% had severe ED. The group with neovascular macular degeneration had 94.6% with some degree of ED and, of them, 55.6% had severe erectile dysfunction.

Why do people who suffer erectile dysfunction have higher chances of developing macular degeneration? Costa C and Virag R. published a paper called “The endothelial-erectile dysfunction connection” in Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2009, which explains the mechanism. Insufficient nitric oxide (NO) can contribute to endothelial dysfunction. If NO is not sufficient, the blood vessels cannot dilate sufficiently. People tend to develop high blood pressure, Reynaud’s, arthritis, migraine and impotence. If people stay inside for too long with no time to relax and take a deep breath, their NO will not be sufficient, and their blood vessels will constrict chronically. That is why people who are physically active and work outdoors have less erectile dysfunction and macular degeneration. The energy flow to their retina and penis is much better than in people who sit in front of a computer for more than 6 hours a day.

Acupuncture, Chinese herbs, meditation or just simply breathing deeply will increase your NO instantly. In order to avoid ED and macular degeneration in your early forties, you need to do more physical exercise and twice-a-week acupuncture treatment even though you have no ED currently. By the end of the day, before you go to sleep, you can meditate for 15 min to increase your NO concentration and dilate the blood vessels.