Diabetic retinopathy is a diabetic complication that affects eyes. It's caused by damage to the blood vessels of the light sensitive tissue in the back of the eye which is your retina.
At first, this may cause no symptoms, or just mild symptoms, but it does lead to blindness further down the road.
Some examples of symptoms would be: blurred vision, fluctuating vision, impaired color vision, dark or empty areas in your vision, spots or dark strings floating in your vision (floaters), or complete vision loss.
Diabetic retinopathy in most cases affects both eyes.
What causes diabetic retinopathy? Over time, when you have too much sugar traveling within your blood, it can lead to the blockage of tiny blood vessels the nourish the retina, cutting off its blood supply. In attempt to fix this, the eye tries to grow new blood vessels. Normally these new vessels don't develop properly an often leak really easily.
There are many risk factors involved when looking at your potential to develop diabetic retinopathy. For the most part, anyone who has diabetes can develop diabetic retinopathy. The risk of it developing can increase if: you are a tobacco user, are pregnant, have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, poor control of blood sugar levels, as well as, the longer you have diabetes the greater the risk of diabetic retinopathy developing. Being either black, Hispanic, or Native American will also affect your chances.
There are certain measures that you can take to try to prevent this by, managing your blood sugar levels, as well as asking your doctor about glycosylated hemoglobin tests. Also keeping blood pressure and cholesterol levels in check. Smoking and using other types of tobacco risks complications and such so ask your doctor to help you stop. Lastly, definitely pay attention to changes in vision, you always want to take precautions.
Anon, (2018)
Mayo Clinic, (2018)
At first, this may cause no symptoms, or just mild symptoms, but it does lead to blindness further down the road.
Some examples of symptoms would be: blurred vision, fluctuating vision, impaired color vision, dark or empty areas in your vision, spots or dark strings floating in your vision (floaters), or complete vision loss.
Diabetic retinopathy in most cases affects both eyes.
What causes diabetic retinopathy? Over time, when you have too much sugar traveling within your blood, it can lead to the blockage of tiny blood vessels the nourish the retina, cutting off its blood supply. In attempt to fix this, the eye tries to grow new blood vessels. Normally these new vessels don't develop properly an often leak really easily.
There are many risk factors involved when looking at your potential to develop diabetic retinopathy. For the most part, anyone who has diabetes can develop diabetic retinopathy. The risk of it developing can increase if: you are a tobacco user, are pregnant, have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, poor control of blood sugar levels, as well as, the longer you have diabetes the greater the risk of diabetic retinopathy developing. Being either black, Hispanic, or Native American will also affect your chances.
There are certain measures that you can take to try to prevent this by, managing your blood sugar levels, as well as asking your doctor about glycosylated hemoglobin tests. Also keeping blood pressure and cholesterol levels in check. Smoking and using other types of tobacco risks complications and such so ask your doctor to help you stop. Lastly, definitely pay attention to changes in vision, you always want to take precautions.
Anon, (2018)
Mayo Clinic, (2018)
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