The Diabetes Lifestyle - Maintaining the Quality of Life
Diabetic Retinopathy - one of the diabetic eye diseases that can rapidly lead to blindness if not controlled.
Diabetic Retinopathy is one of several Diabetic eye diseases and the most common. When left untreated it can lead to blindness. The main other ones are Glaucoma, Cataracts and Macular Degeneration.
Diagram Showing Retina
There are two categories of Diabetic retinopathy – Proliferative and Non-proliferative. The Non-proliferative category has three stages of severity which are progressive and involve swelling and leaking of blood vessels with some constriction causing loss of blood supply to the retina.
As you would expect the proliferative is far more serious and involves the body trying to make up for the loss of blood supply by triggering the growth of new blood vessels along the retina. These vessels are abnormal and fragile and tend to leak blood eventually causing blindness through retinal damage.
As a disease diabetes greatly affects blood vessels and this aspect gives rise to diabetic retinopathy. Associated high blood sugar levels cause blood vessels in the retina to hemorrage and leak fluid which causes damage as the retinal cells are vulnerable to the sugars in the fluid.
If treated early enough the deterioration of the retina caused by the Retinopathy condition can be slowed right down and blindness avoided. However, any loss of vision due to damage already done to the eye is permanent and cannot be reversed.
If you have diabetic retinopathy, you will certainly need an eye examination more frequently than otherwise. With timely intervention to control blood sugar levels the risk of blindness can be reduced to a very small percentage.
The disease affects both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetics in more or less equal proportions.
For the Non-proliferative stages there is nothing which can be done to treat the eye itself and closely controlling blood sugar levels is the only option.
However, once the more serious Proliferative stage has kicked in there is usually bleeding of blood vessels into the eye causing loss of vision. The only treatment available to stave off blindness is laser surgery.