Comedian Roseanne Barr Reveals She's Going Blind From Macular Degeneration
Comedian Roseanne Barr, 63, is soon going to lose her vision, according to her recent interview with The Daily Beast.
Barr revealed she has glaucoma (a sign of optic nerve damage) and macular degeneration, the latter of which is a common and leading cause of vision loss. The National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health reported degeneration progresses differently for everyone; some more slow than others. But when the Beast asked if her doctors could estimate how long until she loses her vision, Barr said her vision is already “closing in.”
“It’s something weird,” she added. “But there are other weird things. That one’s harsh, ’cause I read a lot, and then I thought, ‘Well, I guess I could hire somebody to read for me and read to me.’ But I like words and I like looking. You do what you have to do. I just try and enjoy vision as much as possible — y’know, living it up. My dad had it, too.”
The signs and symptoms of degeneration also vary among patients, thus treatment will too. However, marijuana has proven to be “good medicine” for Barr, relieving the pressure she feels on her eyes. While Dr. Henry D. Jampel, a professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins, said there is evidence marijuana can reduce both eye and blood pressure in patients with glaucoma, “recommending this drug in any form for the treatment of glaucoma…does not make sense given its side effects and short duration of action.”