Diabetes is a particularly dangerous disease to have. It slowly eats you up on the inside and is one of the major causes of life-altering results due to kidney failure, heart attacks, strokes, lower limb amputation, and blindness. Yes, you read it right: Diabetes can lead to blindness. How? Let’s find out in this blog.
How Does Diabetes Affect Your Eyes?
Diabetes starts affecting your vision when your blood sugar is high. Usually, it changes the fluid levels or causes swelling in your eye tissues, which helps you focus. This leads to blurry vision, which is temporary and goes away when your diabetes is back to normal.
The challenge arises when your diabetes is always high. Consistently high blood sugar levels begin to damage the tiny and sensitive blood vessels in the back of your eye. This damage may start at the prediabetic level when the sugar levels are high but not enough for a diagnosis.
Now, these damaged tissues allow for fluid leakage and swelling. Moreover, there may also be growth of new, weak blood vessels which may bleed into the middle part of your eye. Thus, leading to scarring or dangerously high pressure within your eye.
Typically, diabetes can lead to the following 4 eye problems.
4 Common Diabetic Eye Problems
1. Diabetic Retinopathy
Diabetic retinopathy affects the blood vessels in the retina of your eyes. Your retina is the one responsible for receiving the light signals and sending them to the brain to help you see the final image.
Unfortunately, the early stages don’t have a clear symptom. Typically, it is minor changes such as trouble seeing and reading. Mind you, these changes come and go. However, in its later stages, the retinal blood vessels start bleeding. As a result, you may begin to see dark, floating spots or cobweb-like streaks, leading to scarring.
The sooner it gets detected, the better the treatment plan works. Generally, your eye specialist may go ahead with one of the following treatment options based on the stage and severity:
- Laser therapy
- Medicines
- Vitrectomy
- Reattachment of the retina (if your retina is detached)
2. Diabetic Macular Edema
With Diabetic retinopathy, your risk for macular edema increases too. The macula is basically the part of your retina needed for you to be able to read, drive, and see faces.
As we have mentioned before, diabetes can lead to swelling of this part, destroying your sharp vision over time. Eventually, it leads to partial vision loss or blindness.
3. Glaucoma
Glaucoma is not a single disease. Rather it is a group of diseases that affect your optic nerve, resulting from too much pressure in the eye. Many of its types don’t have clear symptoms and the vision loss is rather gradual.
Individuals with diabetes are at twice the risk of developing open-angle glaucoma, the most common of all types.
4. Cataracts
Like all the other eye concerns mentioned here, diabetes increases the risk for cataracts, too. Simply put, high blood sugar levels damage the lens of your eye, leading to the development of cataracts way sooner than you usually would.
Let’s understand the science behind it. High blood sugar level causes your lens to swell, in turn, blurring your vision. There’s also an enzyme called in the eye lens that converts sugar into sugar alcohol called sorbitol. As its production increases, it starts to accumulate in your eye, making your lens cloudier and your vision more blurry as a result.
What’s worse? It can also increase the risk of complications during cataract removal surgeries.
Also Read: Cataract: All You Need to Know
How Can You Protect Your Eyes?
Diabetes requires careful management. Here are a few ways you can prevent diabetic eye concerns.
- Visit your ophthalmologist for dilated eye exams at least once a year. In its initial stages, diabetic eye concerns have little to no symptoms. A dilated eye exam allows for a thorough examination of your retina and optic nerve for signs of damage before they start affecting your vision.
- Always keep your blood sugar levels in check to avoid temporary blurry vision due to high sugar.
- Besides blood sugar, you also need to keep your cholesterol levels in check.
- Give up smoking.
- Exercise regularly to keep your sugar in check. Be mindful to include some quick-eye exercises, too.
Diabetes is not just one single disease. Instead, it is an invitation to multiple diseases. As for diabetic eyes, regular examination puts you a step ahead, making your action plan stronger and more effective.
If you or your loved one has diabetes and is experiencing any of the symptoms we’ve mentioned above, please schedule an appointment at the earliest at your nearest Shree Ramkrishna Netralaya, one of the best eye hospitals in Mumbai.