If you or a loved one is suffering from diabetes or might suspect they have diabetes, it is important to get your eyes checked by an experienced and trained optometrist. Our optometrist encourages all patients to undergo a routine diabetic eye exam.
It is crucial for individuals with diabetes or individuals who may be prediabetic to visit their eye doctor every year. There are many eye diseases and complications that can come from the delay of visiting an optometrist.
Even if you feel like ‘nothing is wrong’ with your vision, an eye exam is painless, convenient, and professionally executed by our optometrist. Continue reading to learn more about diabetic eye exams and why they are so important for your loved ones.
Eye Care For Diabetics
Diabetics must make sure they see an eye doctor every year and that that eye doctor knows all the signs of diabetic retinopathy. This is because one of the tell-tale signs of diabetes is a change in the blood vessels of the eye, a condition called retinopathy, caused by prolonged high blood glucose weakening the walls of the retina. In fact, it is not unheard of for an optometrist to be the first to recognize that a person has diabetes.
The first signs of diabetic retinopathy are tiny red or white spots on the retina that only an eye doctor will see. Called microaneurysms, these are small pouches of blood bulging through the blood vessel walls, leaking fat, fluid, and blood into the tissues of the retina. If the diabetic patient does not take steps to lower his blood sugar, the leakage can spread to the macula, causing it to swell, a condition called macular edema. At this point vision can become impaired and a dangerous cycle begun where additional blood vessels form, go onto rupture, causing scars to form, and more blood vessels to form, rupture and scar. The end result can be macular detachment and blindness.
Eye Care Recommendations of the American Diabetes Association
The American Diabetes Association recommends that adults and children over ten years of age with Type 1 diabetes have a dilated comprehensive eye exam within five years of being diagnosed. For those with Type 2 diabetes, the recommendation is for a dilated comprehensive exam as soon as they are diagnosed. From then on, both types are advised to have yearly exams.
Call Saratoga Vision Today!
If you have diabetes or are just interested in knowing more about eye care for diabetics, our optometrist at Saratoga Vision will be glad to answer all your questions. Call today and schedule an appointment at our Saratoga Springs office.