Diabetes is a common health condition that affects a lot of people from all around the world. Diabetes is a disease that affects the whole body, especially the eyes. If you have diabetes, it is essential to frequently check eye specialists to maintain your vision. For many people, managing blood sugar is challenging, and if you’re one of them you should know how diabetes affects your eyes.
Diabetes is a risky medical condition if it is left untreated for a long time. A person may experience many issues like swelling, redness, pain, unclear vision, and the worst-case diabetic retinopathy. If you want to avoid such issues in your eyes, it is essential to know the potential risk of diabetes.
What is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a disease that irregulates the blood sugar level of a person. People with diabetes use insulin to manage their sugar levels. Insulin is a hormone that helps the body to get energy in the body.
A person whose body is unable to produce enough insulin has to suffer abnormal glucose levels. Diabetes is a dangerous disease that strongly impacts the eyes. If you want to maintain your vision, it is essential to manage your sugar level. Leaving diabetes untreated can result in many eye conditions and even vision loss.
7 Ways How Diabetes Affects Your Eye
A person with diabetes has to suffer from an imbalance of sugar levels. It happens when a body doesn’t process the food as energy to include it in blood. Too much sugar in your blood can affect the blood vessels and damage your eyes.
Swelling
The initial effect of diabetes is swelling in the eyes, which results in blurry vision. The irregularity in sugar level may affect the shape of your lens, which will affect your vision. Swelling stays on the eyes for a specific time, and when the sugar level stabilizes, the eyes get normal. If you’re experiencing eye swelling, you must consult your doctor to treat your imbalanced sugar level.
Cataracts
When the sugar level of an individual gets high, he may experience clouds or fog in the eyes, which is called cataracts. Cataracts indicate that your eyes are badly impacted by your abnormal glucose level.
To get back clear vision, doctors mainly recommend cataract surgery, which is an effective procedure for treating glares and unclear vision.
Diabetic Retinopathy
Diabetic retinopathy is a diabetic eye disease that occurs when there is a blockage in blood flow to the retina. It weakens the retina, which results in unclear vision loss. Poor blood circulation strongly impacts the eyes, leading to eye scarring or vision loss.
However, in the start, there are no symptoms of diabetic retinopathy, but in later stages, people may experience swelling, pain, floaters, burning sensation, and blurry vision. Diabetic retinopathy has a permanent effect on the eye, but it can be stopped or slowed down with surgery and proper medication.
Glaucoma
Glaucoma is an eye disease that occurs when there is damage to the optic nerves. Glaucoma has no symptoms in starting, but it becomes visible when it causes severe damage to the eye.
However, there is different equipment that can detect the early signs of glaucoma. With early signs, your doctor can provide an early treatment to cure potential damage and vision loss. Glaucoma is irreversible, but it can be controlled by proper care and treatments. Mostly doctors suggest eye drops, eye injections, or laser treatment to overcome the symptoms.
If your doctor has diagnosed you with glaucoma then you should strictly follow the instructions of the doctor to avoid any risk that can cause permanent blindness.
Proliferative Retinopathy
When a diabetic patient’s body cells don’t get enough oxygen to function, it begin to bleed and create clots in the body. In this situation, a person experiences a scar or tear in the retina that can badly affect the eyes. Mostly people may experience permanent vision loss.
With laser and other surgeries, doctors can remove extra blood vessels if you’re in the early stage of retinopathy.
Maculopathy
Maculopathy is an eye condition that happens when a person’s central part of the eye got affected. This part is mostly impacted by diabetes. With this condition, the diabetic patient may face difficulty in reading, writing, driving and other routine tasks.
Additionally, many people experience swelling that can be treated with proper medication, but if the swelling is getting severe, you should consult an eye specialist. At Vision Gallery, there is an experienced eye specialist who has years of experience dealing with different eye diseases.
Blurry Vision
If you’re continuously facing blurry vision, then don’t assume that there is a fault in your glasses. It is time that you consult a doctor. Blurry vision can be a symptom of many diabetic eye diseases. Blurry vision happens when the sugar level rises, which affects the vision.
The Bottom Line
Diabetes is a challenging disease that can affect the whole body of a person. It sometimes becomes difficult to manage the sugar level that affects the eyes. If you have diabetes, it is essential to frequently consult an eye specialist so they can thoroughly examine your eye condition and suggest the best possible treatment. To book an appointment with eye doctor, call us at 281-377-0219
