Diabetes Eye Exam

at 11:55AM, 1:55PM, and 3:55PM

Diabetes is a disease that affects 17 million Americans and is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. It occurs when the pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin, the hormone that regulates the level of sugar in the blood, or when the body can’t process the insulin properly. Diabetes can result in a range of disease conditions including those that affect eyesight. Diabetics are at greater risk to develop cataracts and glaucoma, but the biggest problem they face is diabetic eye disease or retinopathy. Half of all diabetics will develop retinopathy, usually after the age of 20.

Diabetic Retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness in the United States, but it can be successfully treated and managed with early detection. Dr. Albert Maquire, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania joins Suzanne to explain.

WHAT IS IT?

Diabetic retinopathy is damage to the retina, the nerve tissue of the eye. The eye is a camera. There are lenses in front that focus light. The focused light hits the back of the eye on a piece of nerve tissue, the retina, which acts like the film. The retina turns the focused light into an image and sends it to the brain. Diabetes damages the blood vessels in the retina, causing them to swell, leak or even hemorrhage.

If left untreated, scar tissue can eventually pull the retina away from the back of the eye and lead to permanent vision loss.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS?

The symptoms of diabetic retinopathy include blurred vision due to swelling of the retina and something called “floaters” due to hemorrhages that come out of the retina and into the vitreous gel of the eye. If you were to take a clot of mud and put it into a glass of water, you would no longer be able to see through the glass of water clearly. The same thing occurs to your vision with floaters.

However the more serious problems occurs when diabetics encounter no symptoms. People can be lulled into a false sense of security that because their vision is fine, they don’t have a problem. By the time symptoms develop, often times it’s too late to restore good vision.

THE BEST DEFENSE and TREATMENT

The best defense for diabetics is to have a periodic eye exam to pick up a problem when it first begins. Treatment in the early stages is relatively simple. It involves using a laser to do pinpoint spot welds to leaking areas of the retina. This treatment is very effective. It’s painless and takes approximately five minutes. A lens is applied to the surface of the eye and the patient will see lots of bright flashes of light, as from a flashbulb. Their vision will be blurred for a short time then return to normal. In severe causes in which the retina has hemorrhaged into the vitreous gel treatment is a bit more complicated. Several 10-minute sessions of higher intensity lasers are used to debreed the sick layer of the retina. If the vitreous cavity has filled with blood, it must be treated surgically. A vitrectomy is performed in which the blood is removed from the eye, and then lasers are employed to prevent further bleeding.

PROGNOSIS

The treatment for diabetic retinopathy is not a cure but can control the problem, and allow the diabetic person to maintain good quality eyesight. It must be repeated on an as needed basis, so continual periodic eye exams are a must. Before the development of lasers, diabetic routinely went blind from this disease. Developments over the past twenty years have revolutionized eye care for diabetic retinopathy.