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June 2006
The Eyes Have It
Having diabetes puts you at risk for eye disease. Here’s what you need to know
Your eyes allow you to see and enjoy the world around you, so it’s important to keep them healthy. That’s especially true if you have diabetes, because you can suffer from complications—including vision loss – if you don’t control your blood sugar. Here are some problems you could face and how you can catch them early.
Blurred vision
Blurred vision (a symptom, not a disease) occurs when blood-sugar levels change fast—either higher or lower. In fact, sometimes blurred vision can lead to the initial diagnosis of diabetes. “Once your blood-sugar levels drop below 200 for six to eight weeks, your normal vision returns,” says Andrew Bausch, M.D., Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network ophthalmologist.
When You Need Eye Exams
To prevent these and other eye diseases, Bausch suggests that people with diabetes have a dilated eye exam following this schedule: |
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No eye disease |
Every year |
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Cataracts or mild diabetic retinopathy |
Every 6 months |
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Severe diabetic retinopathy |
Every 3 months |
Cataracts
A cataract causes the lens of your eye—the part you see through—to become cloudy over time, making you feel like you’re looking through foggy glasses. The “cloud” begins small and gradually grows until your entire lens is cloudy. “Cataracts tend to happen at a younger age (around 40 or 50) and grow faster among people who have diabetes,” Bausch says.
What’s the treatment? “We take out the old foggy lens and implant a clear, permanent, synthetic lens,” Bausch says. “This surgery takes about fifteen minutes and helps more than 95 percent of people see clearly again.” The exception: People who also have diabetic retinopathy (see below), tend not to see as clearly after cataract surgery.
Diabetic retinopathy
Just as high blood sugar can take its toll on your major arteries and cause heart disease, it can also damage the tiny blood vessels in your retina and cause blurred vision or even blindness. Retinopathy (ret-in-op-athy) occurs when your vessels rupture and leak blood and fluid into your eyes. “In its early, most treatable stages, you may have no vision changes or pain, which is why you need an eye exam at least once a year,” Bausch says. Some retinopathy can be treated with a laser to seal blood vessels – but blood-sugar control is the most successful “treatment.” “Retinopathy happens less often and is less severe in people whose blood sugar is well controlled,” he says.
This page last updated 2/12/08 04:08 PM
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