What is Diabetic Retinopathy?

OXFORD, MS
Don’t let the “thief of sight” take your vision. The main goal of Dr. Turner and his staff at Oxford Family Vision is to ensure all patients can enjoy an enriched life with perfect vision and a healthy lifestyle for years to come. 
If you have any type of diabetes, there’s a chance you could have an eye disease called diabetic retinopathy. More than 2 in 5 people in the U.S. have some stage of diabetic retinopathy. This is a disease when high blood sugar levels cause damage to blood vessels in the retina. The blood vessels either swell and leak, or close, which stops blood from coming through. You could also experience abnormal blood vessels growing on the retina. Any one of these can cause vision loss. So, to be on the safe side, if you have diabetes, be sure to visit Dr. Turner for frequent examinations, and ask him questions about diabetic retinopathy. 
What are the symptoms?
You might want to try and catch it early and are asking yourself, “what are the early signs of diabetic retinopathy?”  Unfortunately, in the early stages of diabetic retinopathy, there are no signs or symptoms. This means you could have it and not even know. However, as diabetic retinopathy gets worse you will start to notice symptoms such as floaters or dots in your field of vision, blurry vision, poor night vision, seeing blank or dark areas in your field of vision, and having vision that changes from blurry to clear. These symptoms usually affect both eyes. Lucky for you, regular eye examinations can help monitor your eyes for many of the initial warning signs. 
What can I do to prevent it?
The best way to lower your risk of diabetic retinopathy is to manage your diabetes. This means keeping your blood sugar levels as close to normal as possible. Consider physical activity, eating healthy, and following your doctor’s instructions about insulin or other diabetic medicines carefully. Along with having diabetes, if you have high blood pressure or high cholesterol you increase your risk for diabetic retinopathy. It is important that you take control of both of these to lower your chances.  
What’s the treatment for it? 
As stated earlier, in the early stages of diabetic retinopathy there are no easily noticeable symptoms. Most individuals will have progressed to advanced stages that are harder to manage and treat by the time vision loss can be noticed. Thankfully, regular eye examinations can help monitor your eyes.  
In the early stages, there’s not much that can be done to treat it. The doctor may just monitor how well your eyes are doing by doing a simple dilated eye exam. As you move to the later stages of the disease it is important to get treatment right away. You must understand that the treatment will not help your vision get better, it will only stop it from getting worse. There are three treatments for diabetic retinopathy and they are medicines, laser treatment, and eye surgery. To know what treatment is best for you, you should speak with Dr. Turner. 
What other problems can it cause?
Without treatment, diabetic retinopathy can lead to other serious eye conditions. Over time, people with diabetic retinopathy may start to develop diabetic macular edema (DME). This is when blood vessels in the retina leak fluid, causing swelling in part of the retina. DME causes your vision to become blurry. Diabetic retinopathy can also cause abnormal blood vessels to grow outside the retina and block fluid from draining out of the eye. When this happens, it causes a type of glaucoma, called neovascular glaucoma. Finally, diabetic retinopathy may cause retinal detachment. This happens when the scars formed in the back of your eye start to pull away from the retina. 
Don’t let diabetic retinopathy steal your vision. Oxford Family Vision Clinic offers a wide variety of testing to help with your eye health. Come see us for the health of your eyes. Give us a call at (662)-234-0400 or schedule an appointment online today. 



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Photo by: Jose A. Thompson

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