How does diabetes affect your eyes?

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Diabetes can lead to BLURRY VISION, CATARACTS, GLAUCOMA in several ways. In some cases, it’s a minor problem that you can resolve by stabilizing your blood sugar or taking eye drops. Other times, it’s a sign of something more serious that’s worth discussing with your doctor.

Blurry vision

Blurry vision means it’s harder to make out fine details in what you’re seeing. Several causes can stem from diabetes, as it may be a sign your glucose level is not in the right range — either too high or too low.

The reason your sight blurs may be fluid leaking into the lens of your eye. This makes the lens swell and change shape. Those changes make it hard for your eyes to focus, so things start to look fuzzy.

You may also get blurred vision when you start insulin treatment. This is due to shifting fluids, but it generally resolves after a few weeks. For many people, as blood sugar levels stabilize, so does their vision.

Cataracts

The natural internal lens of your eye allows your eye to see and focus on an image, just like a camera. When that lens gets cloudy, like a dirty or smudged window, that means a cataract has formed. Anyone can get them, but people with diabetes tend to get them earlier, and they get worse faster.

When part of your lens is cloudy, your eye can’t focus as it should. You won’t see as well. Symptoms include blurred vision and glare. You’ll need surgery to remove a cataract. The doctor replaces the cloudy lens with an artificial one.

Glaucoma

 

People with diabetes are more likely to have glaucoma, which can come in several forms or types.

Pressure builds up inside your eye when fluid can’t drain as it should. This can damage nerves and blood vessels, and cause vision changes.

Medications can treat open-angle glaucoma, the most common form. The lower eye pressure, speed up drainage and reduce the amount of liquid your eye makes.

This type of glaucoma may not cause any symptoms until it’s further along and you have major vision loss. Your doctor can catch it earlier, during an annual exam.

With less common forms of the disease, you might notice:

  • Headaches
  • Eye aches or pain
  • Blurred vision
  • Watery eyes
  • Vision loss
Treatment can include medicine and special eye drops. Surgery and laser treatments can help lower eye pressure. If you have diabetes, you’re also more likely to get a rare condition called neovascular glaucoma. This makes new blood vessels grow on the iris, the colored part of your eye. They block the normal flow of fluid and raise eye pressure.The primary treatment of neovascular glaucoma is to reverse the formation of new blood vessels. For this, your doctor may use a laser to reduce the number of blood vessels in the back of the eye, or they may use an anti-VEGF injection while using other measures to quickly lower the eye pressure.

The Need for Eye Exams:-

Many people first learn they have serious health conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and even cancer yes it’s possible by the annual eye test.

Our eyes have been called “the window to our soul” It turns out, they also are often a very effective window to our overall health.

During a comprehensive eye exam, your eye doctor can observe and evaluate the health and condition of the blood vessels in your retina, which are a good predictor of the health of blood vessels throughout your body. Conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia all are visible by changes in the appearance of the retinal blood supply and blood vessels. Annual eye exams are especially important for anyone with diabetes or who might be at risk for the disease.

Nandani
Nandani

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