Tag Archives: Diabetic retinopathy

Several of you asked about the treatment of the eye conditions resulting from diabetes. This last Straight, No Chaser addressing Diabetes Awareness Month will focus on treatment approaches.
The first point – and one that can’t be overemphasized – is treatment is not a cure. As long as diabetes continues (and especially continues to be uncontrolled), symptoms will progress, and the diabetic-related causes of eye disorders will create ongoing difficulties, even after treatment of past problems has occurred. Thus, the first consideration is to understand steps you can take to prevent or slow the progression of the effects of diabetes on your eyes.
There actually are several preventive measures within your control. Consider implementing these.

• Keep your blood glucose and blood pressure as close to normal as you can. This involves dieting, exercising and taking your medication as prescribed.
• Have an eye care professional examine your eyes annually – even if your vision is normal, and especially if your vision is normal. If you have good control of your diabetes, your eyes will tell part of that story, and you need to stay ahead of evolving problems. Of course, discovering problems early and getting prompt treatment gives you the best opportunity to maintain normal vision and to prevent advancement to more serious stages. Be proactive and ask your eye care professional to check for signs of cataracts and glaucoma.
• If you are diabetic and planning to get pregnant, ask your doctor if you should have an eye exam.
• If you are diabetic and pregnant, see an eye care professional during your first 3 months of pregnancy.
• Don’t smoke.

Recall that damaged older vessels or fragile new vessels has a propensity to bleed into the eye. This blood interferes with your ability to see normally. This severe, advanced diabetic retinopathy is treated with laser surgery, which helps to shrink the abnormal blood vessels, thus reducing bleeding into the eye. The procedure involves 1,000 to 2,000 laser burns in the area of the retina (the lining in the back of your eye that senses light), causing the abnormal blood vessels to shrink. Even as laser surgery saves much of your sight, patients often notice reduction or loss of side vision, color vision and/or night vision.
If the bleeding is especially severe, you may need a surgical procedure called a vitrectomy. This procedure removes blood from the center of your eye.

These procedures stabilize vision and in some instances may dramatically improve it. Focal laser treatment reduces the risk of vision loss by 50 percent and the risk of blindness by 90 percent. However, laser surgery most often cannot restore vision that has already been lost. That is why finding diabetic retinopathy early should be your most important strategy to prevent vision loss. There are additional medical treatment options emerging meant to replace the need for surgery. If you suffer from diabetic retinopathy, discuss these options with your eye doctor.
Please remember, that although both laser treatments and vitrectomies are very effective in reducing vision loss, they are not cures. Once you have proliferative retinopathy, you always will be at risk for new bleeding. That said, people with progressive diabetic retinopathy have less than a five percent chance of becoming blind within five years of early treatment.

Please use the preventive strategies and understand the treatment options available to you. Failure to do so could be devastating.
Feel free to ask your SMA expert consultant any questions you may have on this topic.
Order your copy of Dr. Sterling’s new book Behind The Curtain: A Peek at Life from within the ER at jeffreysterlingbooks.com, iTunes, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and wherever books are sold.
Thanks for liking and following Straight, No Chaser! This public service provides a sample of what http://www.SterlingMedicalAdvice.com (SMA) and 844-SMA-TALK offers. Please share our page with your friends on WordPress, like us on Facebook @ SterlingMedicalAdvice.com and follow us on Twitter at @asksterlingmd.
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As you likely know, diabetics have a large amount of blood glucose (sugar) circulating in their blood. The high level of glucose can cause damage to many cells, including your eyes. If you’re diabetic, your challenge is to learn how to slow down the process. This Straight, No Chaser addresses relatively frequent effects of diabetes on your eyes.
How does diabetes hurt my eyes?
Diabetes has direct (through the effects of high blood glucose) and indirect (through high blood pressure) effects on four parts of your eye: the lining in the back of your eye that senses light (the retina), the jelly-like fluid that fills the back of the eye (the vitreous), the lens (serves to focus light on the retina) and the optic nerve (the main nerve from the eye to the brain).

How can diabetes hurt the retinas of my eyes?

• Diabetic retinopathy is the term for the most common eye problem of diabetics. The retinas have tiny blood vessels that are easy to damage and do become damaged by high glucose levels. As retina problems get worse, new blood vessels grow. These new blood vessels are fragile and susceptible to leaking blood into the back of the eye. The leaking blood keeps light from reaching the retina. This can result in a sensation of seeing floating spots or almost total darkness.
• Over time, these damaged blood vessels can form scar tissue and pull the retina away from the back of the eye, causing detachment of the retina. A detached retina can cause loss of sight or blindness if you don’t take care of it right away.

How do I know if I have retina damage from diabetes?
You may or may not have any signs of retina damage, but here are the more common signs

• blurry or double vision
• dark or floating spots
• pain or pressure in one or both of your eyes
• rings, flashing lights, or blank spots
• trouble seeing things out of the corners of your eyes

What other eye problems can happen to people with diabetes?
Cataracts and glaucoma are two other eye disorders that occur at a higher frequency in diabetics.

• A cataract is a cloud over the normally clear lens of your eye. Remember, the lens focuses light onto the retina, so the presence of a cataract makes everything you look at seem cloudy. You need surgery to remove the cataract, which replaces the bad lens with a permanent plastic lens.

• Glaucoma is a condition resulting from pressure building up in the eye. Eventually, this will damage the optic nerve, which will progressively reduce your vision. Treating glaucoma involves eye drops to lower the pressure in your eyes or surgery for advanced cases.

Of course, you want to know what steps you can take to prevent or slow the occurrences of these eye conditions. These will be discussed in an upcoming Straight, No Chaser.
Feel free to ask your SMA expert consultant any questions you may have on this topic.
Order your copy of Dr. Sterling’s new book Behind The Curtain: A Peek at Life from within the ER at jeffreysterlingbooks.com, iTunes, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and wherever books are sold.
Thanks for liking and following Straight, No Chaser! This public service provides a sample of what http://www.SterlingMedicalAdvice.com (SMA) and 844-SMA-TALK offers. Please share our page with your friends on WordPress, like us on Facebook @ SterlingMedicalAdvice.com and follow us on Twitter at @asksterlingmd.
Copyright © 2016 · Sterling Initiatives, LLC · Powered by WordPress