Diabetes is a disease characterized by high blood sugar levels, either because the body doesn’t produce enough of the hormone insulin to shuttle the sugar into cells to be converted into energy (Type 1) or because the cells have become resistant to insulin’s effects (Type 2). High levels of sugar can easily damage tissues, including the tissues of the eyes.
At Retina Specialists, our expert team of board-certified ophthalmologists offers diabetic eye exams for our patients who have any form of diabetes, to ensure that your eyes remain healthy and unaffected by the disease. If you haven’t had a diabetic eye exam before, here’s what you can expect.
To understand what happens during a diabetic eye exam, it helps to understand a bit about how the eye is structured and how we see. The easiest way to explain it is to follow the path light takes as it enters and travels through the eye.
Light first strikes the cornea, a clear, tough, and curved membrane that covers the eye. It’s clear so that light can pass through it, and it’s curved so it can help focus the light once it enters the eye.
Once past the cornea, the light moves through the anterior chamber, which is filled with a protective aqueous humor; then, through the pupil, which is a hole in the iris (the colored part of the eye); and then, through a clear lens that refines the focus.
Next, the light passes through a second chamber — the vitreous — which is filled with a gel-like humor, and finally, it hits the back of the eye, where the retinal tissue lies. The retina is responsible for taking the focused light and converting it into electrical signals. It sends these signals to the brain to be processed by the optic nerve.
The central 2% of the retina is known as the macula, and it’s this region that registers your clear, central vision, the objects that are right in front of you. Blood vessels running in and behind the retina nourish the macula.
According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), when you should have an eye exam depends on the type of diabetes you have.
You should have a comprehensive dilated eye exam within five years of being diagnosed and every year after that. If your sugar levels are stable and your eyes aren’t damaged, the doctor may determine that you can wait two years for a follow-up.
You need to have a comprehensive dilated exam as soon as you get your diabetes diagnosis. Since Type 2 diabetes doesn’t present with symptoms in the early stages, you could have been living with it for several years before your diagnosis, meaning your eyes were at risk for damage before anybody knew there was a problem.
If you’re planning to get pregnant, have a complete dilated eye exam to get a baseline. Once you become pregnant, have your eyes examined within the first trimester, and again in the last trimester to ensure the pregnancy hasn’t caused undue stress on your tissues.
According to the ADA, a diabetic eye exam looks for signs of five conditions, all of which can be minimized or prevented by maintaining healthy blood sugar levels and consistently maintaining an A1C of less than 7%.
This condition causes blood vessel leakage and abnormal blood vessel growth in the retina that can lead to blindness if not treated.
This condition causes fluid build-up in and swelling of the macula. It often coincides with retinopathy and can cause severe vision loss if not treated.
This is a clouding of the eye’s lens that causes objects to appear fuzzy. Standard treatment is replacement of the lens with an implant.
This condition causes increased fluid pressure in the eyes that can damage the optic nerve, resulting in blindness if left untreated.
People with diabetes are twice as likely to develop dry eye than the average person. It typically causes blurred vision, excessive watering, and a severe burning sensation. Elevated blood sugar levels increase the risk of infection in patients with dry eye disease.
The ophthalmologist dilates your eyes so they can see all the internal structures and determine if there are any worrisome developments.
If you have diabetes and haven’t had an eye exam yet this year, now’s the time to do it — for your sight and your overall health. Call Retina Specialists at any of our five Texas offices — in Dallas, DeSoto, Plano, Mesquite, and Waxahachie — to schedule a consultation with one of our specialists.
