Diabetic retinopathy is a serious eye disease that affects people with diabetes. Diabetes is a condition that causes too much sugar to stay in your blood. Over time, having high blood sugar can damage many parts of your body. One of the main places it hurts is the back of your eye.

The back of the eye holds a special layer called the retina. The retina acts like a movie screen. It catches the light that enters your eye and turns it into pictures for your brain. To do this important job, the retina needs a steady supply of blood. It is covered in thousands of tiny, delicate blood vessels. When blood sugar stays high for too long, it damages these tiny vessels and causes diabetic retinopathy.

When there is too much sugar in your blood, it can clog the tiny blood vessels in the retina. This cuts off the blood supply to parts of the eye. The eye tries to fix this by growing brand-new blood vessels. However, these new blood vessels are weak, fragile, and do not grow properly.

Because they are so weak, these new vessels leak fluid or bleed very easily into the middle of the eye. This leaking fluid causes the retina to swell up. When the retina swells, your vision becomes blurry. In severe cases, the bleeding can completely block your sight. The healing process can also create scar tissue inside the eye. This scar tissue can pull the retina away from the back of the eye, which is a major medical emergency.

In the early stages of diabetic retinopathy, you might not notice any changes at all. Your eyes will not hurt, and your vision might seem completely normal. This is why the disease is so dangerous. As the damage gets worse, you may start to experience these common symptoms:

• Floaters: You might see dark spots, lines, or cobwebs floating across your vision.
• Blurry Vision: Your eyesight might become hazy, or it might change from day to day.
• Blank Spots: You might notice dark or empty areas in your field of vision.
• Trouble Seeing Colors: Colors might start to look faded, dull, or washed out.
• Sudden Vision Loss: You could experience a sudden drop in your ability to see clearly.

Anyone who has diabetes can get diabetic retinopathy. This includes people with type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Your risk goes up the longer you live with the disease. For example, someone who has had diabetes for fifteen years is much more likely to have eye damage than someone who was diagnosed last year. You are also at a higher risk if you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or if you smoke.

The best way to protect your eyes is to manage your diabetes carefully. This means keeping your blood sugar levels steady by eating healthy foods, exercising, and taking your prescribed medications. Keeping your blood pressure and cholesterol under control is also very important for protecting your eye health.

If the disease progresses and threatens your sight, eye doctors have effective treatments to stop the damage:

• Injections: The doctor can use special medicines injected directly into the eye to stop new, weak blood vessels from growing and to reduce swelling.
• Laser Treatment: Doctors can use lasers to shrink the abnormal blood vessels or seal up leaking ones.
• Surgery: In advanced cases where there is a lot of bleeding or scar tissue, a surgeon can perform a procedure to clean out the blood and repair the retina.

Because early damage pendkareyeclinic.com does not cause pain or changes in your vision, every person with diabetes must get a dilated eye exam at least once a year. Catching the problem early is the absolute best way to save your eyesight.