Diabetic Retinopathy

Diabetic retinopathy is the most common diabetic eye disease and a leading cause of blindness in American adults. It is damage to the retina caused by complications of diabetes mellitus, which can eventually lead to blindness. It is caused by changes in the blood vessels of the retina. The retina of the eye is essential to good vision. But, when you have diabetes, high blood glucose levels damage tiny blood vessels in the retina causing them to swell and leak, and scar tissue to develop. Over four million Americans have this eye disease.

The National Eye Institute estimates that 40 to 45 percent of people diagnosed with diabetes have some degree of diabetic retinopathy. The longer you have diabetes, the more at risk you are.

If you have Type 1 or Type 2 Diabetes, you are at risk.

Causes:

High blood sugar causes this disease. It happens when high blood sugar damages the tiny blood vessels of the retina.

High blood pressure can make it worse. It can cause more damage to the weakened vessels in your eye, clouding more of your vision.

Signs and Symptoms:

There are often no early warning signs. Symptoms include blurred vision, dark streaks, floaters in your eye, poor night vision, and loss of vision. The vision may get better or worse during the day.

As new blood vessels form at the back of the eye, they can bleed (hemorrhage) and blur vision. The first time this happens, in most cases, it will leave just a few specks of blood, or spots, floating in a person's visual field. The spots often go away after a few hours.

These spots may be followed within a few days or weeks by a much greater leakage of blood, which blurs vision. In extreme cases, a person will only be able to tell light from dark in that eye. It may take the blood anywhere from a few days to months or even years to clear from the inside of the eye, and in some cases the blood will not clear. These types of large hemorrhages tend to happen more than once, often during sleep.

In some cases, blood vessels may also become plugged and prevent the flow of blood. In some cases, new, fragile blood vessels grow on the retina and eventually leak. Has four stages:

1. Mild Nonproliferative Retinopathy - This is the earliest stage; microaneurysms occur (Small areas of balloon-like swelling in the retina's blood vessels.)
2. Moderate Nonproliferative Retinopathy - As the disease progresses, some blood vessels that nourish the retina are blocked.
3. Severe Nonproliferative Retinopathy - More blood vessels are blocked, depriving several areas of the retina of their blood supply. These areas of the retina send signals to the body to grow new blood vessels for nourishment.
4. Proliferative Retinopathy - Advanced stage; the signals sent by the retina for nourishment trigger the growth of new blood vessels. These new blood vessels are abnormal and fragile. If they leak blood, severe vision loss and even blindness can result.

The best treatment for diabetic eye diseases is prevention. Controlling your blood glucose levels can prevent or slow its progression. Here are seven tips for protecting your vision:

1. Keep your blood glucose levels as normal as possible. Good control of blood sugar levels slows the onset and progression.
2. Maintain normal blood pressure.
3. Don't smoke.
4. Don't drink. Alcohol has an adverse effect on your blood glucose levels.
5. Control cholesterol. Studies have linked lipid levels and cholesterol in the blood to this eye disease.
6. Have frequent eye exams. People with proliferative retinopathy can reduce their risk of blindness by 95 percent with timely treatment.
7. You may want to take benfotiamine. This supplement is a soluble form of thiamine, or vitamin B1. It has been used for decades in Japan and Europe to prevent this disease.

It is vital that you monitor the condition of your eyes vigilantly! Discovering this eye disease early gives you a better chance of avoiding vision loss and blindness.