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Diabetes means having to face possible complications with your eyesight. Knowing what these are and what the treatment is can help to alleviate the panic of finding out that you have a diabetes related eye condition.
It’s a common mistake to think that each of our body parts works separately to the others without any one significantly affecting the other. It is also a common mistake to think that when you’re sick you will only feel it in one part of your body. Just think of when you get the flu and you feel achy all over. You can’t even think clearly through the fog that seems to take over your mind.
In the same way, an illness like diabetes has some unusual and possibly unexpected affects on various parts of one’s body - one example being your eyes and your eyesight.
Let’s start off explaining what diabetes is, in order for you to better understand it’s affect on your optical system.
In short, a regular working body produces and metabolizes insulin in a certain way in order to help with the digestion of your food and the way that your body uses the various nutrients and elements from that food. When someone suffers from diabetes, it means that one’s body does not produce enough insulin and cannot digest and use sugars and carbohydrates in the same way that a regular body does.
There are three types of diabetes that one can contract: Type 1 diabetes, which is usually contracted before the age of 30 and is monitored by daily (or sometimes more) blood tests and controlled often controlled with daily insulin injections.
Type 2 diabetes is usually known as “late-onset diabetes” as it occurs in older ages and can be controlled with a special diet, exercise and sometimes oral medication.
The third type of diabetes can only be contracted by pregnant women and is known as gestational diabetes mellitus. In most cases, diabetes lasts through the pregnancy and then disappears, but increases the risk for type 1 or type 2 onset diabetes later on in life. This is monitored with regular blood tests and maintenance of a special diet.
In terms of one’s sight, diabetes may or may not mess with your ability to see. However, in most cases, it does to some extent or another as your retina works by being supplied by a network of blood vessels. Diabetes can damage those blood vessels causing problems with your lens, resulting in blurring which comes and goes; higher possibility of cataracts; or, some level of retinopathy - either enough to threaten ones sight, or very mild and non-threatening.
The blood vessels in the retina may bulge slightly (micro aneurysm) or leak with blood (hemorrhages) or fluid (exudates). This will not affect your vision, unless the macula of your eye is affected by your diabetes, resulting in maculopathy, a form of diabetic retinopathy. This is when your central vision is affected, making it difficult to make out detail such as people’s faces. You will still be able to get around though as your peripheral vision will not be affected. This condition is usually treated with laser surgery.
Proliferative diabetic retinopathy is another form of this condition, and in fact, a progression of it whereby the large blood vessels of the retina actually become blocked; starving the retina of oxygen. The only treatment is neo-vascularisation, whereby the eye is manipulated into producing new blood vessels. The downside is that these new blood vessels may not grow where they’re supposed to, and may be weak enough to bleed and cause hemorrhaging. The amount of bleeding will determine how badly ones eye will be damaged. On the positive side, only between five to ten percent of diabetes sufferers are said to develop this strain of retinopathy.
The bottom line is that those suffering or those in the higher risk bracket for diabetes should take heed and adhere to the necessary precautions which include keeping a very, very tight and strict control over their blood sugar levels, cholesterol, blood pressure and fitness levels. Smoking is an absolute no-no and regular retinal check-ups are a must. If you’re planning to fall pregnant or have already, take yourself off to your eye doctor for full, regular examinations and speak to your health care provider about controlling and monitoring diabetes.
As with most things that have to do with your sight, early diagnosis is the key. Don’t wait for there to be a problem before you head off to check your eyeglasses prescription. Keep your checks regular and consistent and go straight to your eye doctor if you feel any changes in the state of your eyes. Usually, not being able to see out of your current prescription eyeglasses is a good indication that something is wrong - heed the warning. Just as you need to keep your blood sugar levels under control, so too do you need to keep your eyesight under control. Look after yourself!
Hillary Glaser is a social networking specialist and expert in cross-media promotion, currently working on promoting prescription eyeglasses. She is the Director of Marketing and Special Projects for GlassesUSA.com - the easiest way to buy glasses online, which now offers free shipping on all US orders with the code FreeShip10.
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