Diabetes and Your Eyes

Diabetes can affect your eyes. Five million may lose their vision because they didn’t know they had the disease. Statistics show that more than 10% of the southern U.S. population has diabetes, and 50% of these diabetic patients have not had regular eye examinations.  Diabetic eye diseases, eye problems that affect those with diabetes, include diabetic retinopathy, cataracts and glaucoma. The most common of these is diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of new cases of blindness among working age people in the United States. People with diabetes are more likely to get cataracts at a younger age and are twice as likely to develop glaucoma.

 What is Diabetic Retinopathy?

Diabetic retinopathy is a potentially vision-threatening condition in which the blood vessels inside the retina (the area of light-sensitive cells that line the back of the eye) become damaged. These damaged vessels can then leak, bleed or scar and cause retinal detachment, hemorrhaging or macular edema, conditions which can damage vision. The longer you have diabetes, the greater your chance of developing diabetic retinopathy.

Recommended Care

If you are diagnosed with diabetes, schedule a complete dilated eye examination with your ophthalmologist at least once a year.  Your Eye M.D. will recommend more frequent examinations if problems are detected. Women with diabetes should also be examined if they are planning to become pregnant, are early in the first trimester and every one to three months during pregnancy because diabetic retinopathy can worsen much more rapidly during pregnancy.  As always, early diagnosis of diabetes and effectively controlling blood sugar levels and high blood pressure through diet, exercise and proper medication can help control eye diseases associated with diabetes.

Symptoms

There are often no symptoms in the early stages of diabetic retinopathy and your vision may not be affected until the disease worsens.

Treatment

An effective partnership between you, your primary care physician and your ophthalmologist is necessary to make sure proper eye care and treatment is provided.  The current main treatment option for diabetic retinopathy is laser photocoagulation. In this treatment, the “focal” laser helps to close leaking blood vessels, which lead to macular edema.   Dr. Jake P. Bostom uses a special “pan retinal” laser to make tiny burns on the retina surface removing damaged retinal tissue. This helps to stop or prevent growth of abnormal blood vessels that cause bleeding and retinal detachment. When performed promptly, laser photocoagulation helps reduce the risk of severe vision loss by up to 90 percent.