The Connection Between Diabetes and Vision: Protecting Your Retina Health

Diabetes is a widespread, preventable chronic illness that, over time, damages nearly every system in your body. As of 2022, over 830 million people worldwide struggle with this problem. The resulting high incidence of diabetes caused over 2 million deaths from kidney disease in 2021, and contributed to 11% of cardiovascular fatalities.

Blood sugar, or blood glucose, is something your body needs in proper doses to fuel your cells' energy. As excess blood sugar spreads through your body, it wreaks havoc everywhere, and in the eyes, it can lead to problems like diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and macular edema. 

Let’s examine how this process occurs and discover ways to treat it before it worsens, leading to vision impairment and blindness. Dr. Jeffrey Rapkin and the medical team at Retina Consultants of Muncie help keep Muncie, Indiana, residents seeing clearly with treatments that manage the many complications of diabetes on the eyes.

How diabetes damages your body

This illness stems from extended problems with high blood glucose (blood sugar) called hyperglycemia, which turns into prediabetes before developing into full type 2 diabetes, the most common form of this condition. This overwhelms the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels.

As the excess travels through the bloodstream, it reaches everywhere in your body and heightens the chances of developing a multitude of complications, including cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, nerve damage, skin infections, hearing loss, and gastroparesis.

The conditions it causes in your eyes

For the eyes, diabetes can cause damage in several ways:

Diabetic retinopathy

A typical long-term problem for millions of diabetics, this weakens your normal retinal blood vessels and creates weaker ones that leak into your eye. The weak blood vessels in your retina can lead to detachment and blindness.

Glaucoma

The damaged retinal blood vessels in your eyes that cause retinopathy also increase the risk of elevated eye pressure, which can lead to glaucoma.

Macular edema

Not as well-known as diabetic retinopathy, but over 37 million people in America struggle with it. Leaking, weakened retinal blood vessels accumulate fluid and thicken the retina, damaging the macula, located in the center.

Treatment options

The top priority in managing diabetic eye problems is controlling your illness, so getting the proper medications to help with diabetes is essential for preventing the effects of the various complications of it. Other treatment options vary with the severity of your problems, which include watchful waiting, vision assistance (contacts and glasses), and laser therapy.

When these methods fail to be effective, a vitrectomy may be necessary to remove substances that block vision, scar tissue, and foreign objects that affect vision, and to make retinal repair easier.

Diabetes is dangerous to most parts of the body, and to avoid the long-term damage to your eyes, make an appointment with Dr. Rapkin and Retina Consultants of Muncie today to get the treatment you need.