Diabetes can drastically impact your overall health, but did you know it could affect your eyes? Diabetes has been known to cause a collection of eye diseases that will damage your eyes over time, leading to potential vision loss. However, by being proactive with your eye health, our team can help you manage your diabetes and prevent any problems with your vision.
We can make preventative eye care an intricate part of your diabetes management through annual eye exams. When you schedule an appointment with Coal Creek Family Vision, our team can detect eye problems early and establish treatment plans to treat them meaningfully before it progresses and help you stay healthy.
How Does Diabetes Affect Your Eyes?
Diabetes has been known to affect your eyes when your blood sugar is too high. While in the short term, you’re not likely to experience vision problems from high blood sugar, people with diabetes long-term can experience blurry vision within a few weeks if not managed. When this happens, high blood sugar can affect the blood vessels in the retina, the part of the eye used for sensing light and sending signals to the brain. Damaged blood vessels in the eyes can lead to potential vision loss, and various health issues can come from this problem, including diabetic eye disease.
Diabetic eye disease is a collection of eye diseases resulting from the effects of diabetes. These diseases include:
- Diabetic Retinopathy: This eye disease is the leading cause of blindness in adults, as it occurs when the blood vessels in the retina are destroyed, causing the vessels to swell and leak. This leads to blurry vision and halts blood flow from getting to the eyes.
- Diabetic Macular Edema: A complication arising from diabetic retinopathy where leaking fluid causes the macula, the eye responsible for helping you see, swells and causes further ongoing damage. It can lead to partial blindness or complete blindness.
- Glaucoma: Glaucoma refers to a group of eye diseases affecting the optic nerve, and diabetes can double the chances of having glaucoma, leading to vision loss and blindness.
- Cataracts: The lenses in our eyes provide us with sharp vision and tend to cloud with age, developing cataracts. People with diabetes are able to develop cataracts at an earlier age due to high glucose level deposits building up in the eye.
How We Help Care For Your Eyes?
At Coal Creek Family Vision, we work with the best diagnostic technology to assess your eyes for any early warning signs of damage. Diabetes can significantly impact your eye health and vision, but through our team, we can help you manage your condition by tracking changes in your vision and offering comprehensive treatment plans for managing your diabetes during your eye exam. By receiving a diabetic eye exam, we can spot any problems early and treat them to help keep your vision as healthy as possible. For more information, contact our office today to schedule an appointment.
