Diabetic Eye Disease

Diabetic eye disease refers to a group of eye problems that affect people who have diabetes. Diabetic eye disease includes conditions such as diabetic macular edema, glaucoma, and cataracts. As time passes, diabetes can damage your eyes, leading to impaired vision and even blindness. The good news is you can adapt some measures to prevent diabetic eye disease. If you live with diabetes in San Antonio, you may need to see a medical professional specializing in diabetic eye disease in San Antonio for diagnosis and treatment. They can also guide you on how you can prevent the problem.

How Does Diabetes Affect Your Eyes?

Diabetes often affects your eyes when your blood sugar levels go higher than the optimum level. In the short term, you may not develop vision loss due to high glucose levels. You may experience blurred vision for a few days or weeks when transitioning from one diabetes care plan to another or changing medications. High glucose levels can alter the fluid levels resulting in swollen tissues in your eyes. However, this type of blurred vision often disappears after some of your glucose levels get back to the optimum levels.

If your glucose levels stay high for an extended period, they can cause damage to tiny blood vessels in your eyes. This damage can start when your blood levels increase but not to a level high enough to get a diabetes diagnosis. They can bleed into the middle part of your eye, causing increased eye pressure, which is extremely dangerous. Most eye problems related to diabetes stem from damaged blood vessels.

Who Can Develop Diabetic Eye Disease?

If you have diabetes, you can develop diabetic eye disease. The risk increases if you have high blood glucose and high blood pressure that go untreated. Smoking and high blood cholesterol can also increase your risk for diabetic eye disease. If you become pregnant while having diabetes, the risk of developing the condition also increases. You need to go for regular eye tests to identify issues in their early stages and treat them before they cause any severe damage. However, gestational diabetes does not cause diabetic eye disease, and the reasons for this remain unknown.

Symptoms of Diabetic Eye Disease

Usually, diabetic eye disease does not show any symptoms. You may not experience any form of pain or changes in vision, especially with diabetic retinopathy. When you experience symptoms, they may include:

• Wavy or blurred vision.
• Regularly changing vision.
• Vision loss or dark areas.
• Poor color vision.
• Spots or dark strings.
• Flashes of light.

If you notice any of these symptoms, make sure you see an eye specialist and talk to your doctor.

If you experience any abrupt changes in your vision, talk to your doctor immediately. You should also seek immediate medical attention if it looks like a curtain pulled over your eyes. These symptoms can point towards a detached retina which you should treat as a medical emergency.

To summarize, diabetic eye disease is a group of eye problems that affect diabetic patients. , you can develop the disease if you have diabetes, but the risk increases with high blood pressure, blood glucose, and cholesterol. Most diabetic eye diseases do not show any symptoms.