Diabetic Retinopathy

One of the most common Non-communicable disease diabetes. If you have it then you must highly pay attention to your eye health. Yes!! You heard me right. Diabetes can cause eye diseases. Surprising truth. Let’s take a glance at it.

What is it?

If I said it in more familiar words, it is a leading cause of blindness among diabetic patients. It causes progressive damage to the blood vessels of the retina which is the light sensitive tissue at the back of the eye that is necessary for good vision. It has four stages namely, mild non-proliferative retinopathy (microaneurysms), moderate non-proliferative retinopathy (blockage in some retinal vessels), severe non-proliferative retinopathy (more vessels are blocked leading to deprived retina from blood supply leading to growing new blood vessels) and proliferative retinopathy (most advanced stage). This can be affected to both eyes.

Can we identify it early?

Unfortunately, we can’t see any early symptoms. But lately we can see blurry vision, Floating spots in your vision, blindness.

Treatments?

An important question. First, we need to identify it through “Dilated Eye Exam”. Then we can go to treatments like medicine, laser treatment, surgery under physician’s advice.

How to prevent?

The risks are reduced through good control of blood sugar, blood pressure, and lipid abnormalities. Early diagnosis of DR and timely treatment reduce the risk of vision loss; however, as many as 50% of patients are not getting their eyes examined or are diagnosed too late for treatment to be effective.

Any side effects?

This can lead you to serious eye problems,

Diabetic macular edema (DME) 

Over time, about half of people with diabetic retinopathy will develop DME. DME happens when blood vessels in the retina leak fluid, causing swelling in the macula (a part of the retina). If you have DME, your vision will become blurry because of the extra fluid in your macula.

Neovascular Glaucoma

Diabetic retinopathy can cause abnormal blood vessels to grow out of the retina and block fluid from draining out of the eye. This causes a type of glaucoma.

Stay in one piece beware of these!!!

Ideas Shared By K.M.Veenavee Anuththara