Diabetic Eye Health
Do you have diabetes? If you have diabetes, it’s essential to know how diabetes affects your body, including your eyes. North Valley Eye Care treats eye conditions, including diabetic eye care, to ensure your eyes are healthy and function properly.
What is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a group of conditions that interfere with how the body regulates sugar in the bloodstream. Because it’s a metabolic condition, diabetes can adversely affect various parts of the body, including the heart, kidneys, nerves, and the body’s ability to heal.
The eyes are especially at risk for people with diabetes. Without treatment and intervention, diabetes can cause severe damage to the eyes that may ultimately lead to blindness.
What are Diabetic Eye Conditions?
Diabetes can worsen or increase the likelihood of several eye conditions, including cataracts, glaucoma, and macular degeneration. However, some eye conditions are directly caused by diabetes and are unique to patients with the condition.
Diabetic Retinopathy
Diabetic retinopathy is an eye disease caused by diabetes that leads to permanent retina damage. It occurs in two forms, or what are often considered early and advanced stages of the disease: non-proliferative and proliferative.
Non-Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy
Non-proliferative describes the beginning stage of diabetic retinopathy and is common to many people with diabetes. Due to abnormally high blood sugar levels, blood vessels in the eye begin to leak.
This leakage causes swelling, particularly in the central region of the retina called the macula. If it continues without treatment, this swelling is the most common reason for vision loss.
With non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy, the vessels could also close off, restricting blood flow to the retina and causing tiny particles to form along its surface. This condition can also interfere with vision.
Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy
Proliferative diabetic retinopathy usually occurs in the advanced stages of the disease, although it can happen earlier. It occurs when the retina grows new blood vessels, often triggered by the leakage or blockage of older vessels.
These new vessels also tend to leak, possibly proliferating into the gel-like substance called the vitreous, which makes up the bulk of the eyeball. Slight bleeding produced by these new vessels may produce “floaters,” tiny visible shadows or string-like objects that pass along the field of vision.
However, if the bleeding is heavy, it could block large areas of your vision. The new vessels can also cause scarring on the retina, leading to further malfunction of the macula or detachment of the retina from the back of the eye.
Diabetic Retinal Degeneration
People with diabetes are also prone to losing retinal cells, the various light-sensitive cells that line the back wall of the eye. These cells enable the retina to process incoming light into images, with some of them differentiating the various wavelengths of colors.
Retinal degeneration is a consequence of the disease process in the eye caused by diabetes. With fewer and fewer cells to process images and color, patients may experience significant impairment in their vision, including blurriness, fuzzy images, difficulty with fine detail or seeing faces, or wavy lines that should appear straight.
As with macular degeneration, retinal degeneration can cause patients to see a dark or empty area in the center of their vision.
How Often Do You Need Eye Exams If You Have Diabetes?
Most eye doctors typically recommend annual eye exams for adults around age 40. However, people with a family history of eye conditions or certain health conditions should see their eye doctor earlier.
You should also see your eye doctor more frequently if you have diabetes.
If you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, you should make an appointment for an eye exam as soon as possible.
Your eye doctor at North Valley Eye Care can determine if any degree of diabetic retinopathy or other related conditions is already present. Depending on the outcome of your eye exam, they will recommend the best eye exam schedule to follow or if you need any treatments immediately.
Managing and Treating Diabetic Eye Conditions
Because diabetic eye conditions follow the effects of the condition so closely, patients managing and controlling their diabetes will directly benefit their eye health. Diabetes that is out of control could accelerate eye issues.
Besides the management of diabetes, here are other ways to diagnose or alleviate the effects of diabetic eye conditions:
OCT Angiography
At our practice, we use advanced ZEISS OCT Angiography to get a detailed look at the tiny blood vessels in your retina-without the need for injections or dyes. This quick, painless scan helps us detect early signs of eye conditions like macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy before they affect your vision.
During the test, you’ll simply rest your chin on a support while the machine takes high-resolution, three-dimensional images of the blood flow in your eye in a few minutes. There’s no discomfort, and you can return to your normal activities immediately afterward. The AngioPlex technology is the latest technology that enhances our diagnostic capabilities which means the best possible care for our patients
Intravitreal Injections
New blood vessel growth is triggered by a signal emitted by a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein. To inhibit that signal, ophthalmologists have developed a class of anti-VEGF drugs injected directly into the eye. These anti-VEGF injections help slow or stop the generation of new blood vessels that often arise with diabetic retinopathy.
Pan-Retinal Photocoagulation Laser
With this procedure, your North Valley Eye Care surgeon directs laser energy at targeted areas of the retina where leakage occurs. The laser heats the area and creates a burn, which develops into scar tissue.
This targeted scarring seals off leaking blood vessels or prevents large tears or holes from growing.
Do you need treatment for a diabetic eye condition? Learn more by scheduling an appointment at North Valley Eye Care in Chico, CA, today!
