What is daibetic retinopathy|how to prevent from diabetic retinopathy ?

Daibetic Retinopathy  is the complication of diabetes which interfere with the vision of eye, so before knowing about Diabetes retinopathy one should know about Diabetes.

In Diabetes Mellitus our body can not move glucose ( which is a type of sugar ) from the blood into the cells. This leads to high levels of glucose in your blood and not in enough in your cells.

But your cells needs glucose as a source of energy so if glucose is not present in enough quantity that means the cell starved for energy, despite having glucose in the blood.

In general our body control how much glucose should present in the blood with the help of two hormones called insulin and glucagon.

Insulin is used to reduced the blood glucose levels and glucagon is used to increase blood glucose levels.

Both of these hormones are produced by group of cells in the pancreas called islets of Langerhans.

So, How diabetes cause diabetic retinopathy? 

Diabetic retinopathy affects the eye of the person, in eye the Retina is the inside layer of the eye it’s the most important part of the eye that transmitting light into vision.

And due to high blood glucose level or DM it affects blood vessels in the eye and rest of the body. It affects blood vessels in two ways:-

• First, it causes the blood vessels to close down

Normally blood vessels carry blood to various parts of the body and when the blood vessel closed down in the eye then rest of the body respond to it by creating new blood vessels. 

New blood vessels in other part of body is not a bad thing but in eye they are not such a good thing.

Because these new blood vessels are friable and more likely to bleed that interfere with the clarity of the eye, eye needs clarity in the middle part of it to allow light to transmit it.  

• Second way, in which diabetes affects eye is ?

As diabetes affects blood vessels and sometimes it causes blood vessels to leak and leaking from the blood vessels can damage the retina.

Retina is innermost part of the eye that responsible for transmitting light into vision and if the leakage happens in that area particularly in the central part of the retina then it significantly affects vision.

What are the symptoms of Diabetic Retinopathy?

Diabetic retinopathy can be very slow moving insidious condition because it develops and progresses slowly and changes that might   took over a long period of time .

There may be no symptom at all in initial stage.

As the disease gets worse can eventually lead to poor vision.

However in the majority of cases with diabetic retinopathy usually no symptoms is perceive by the person certainly in the earlier stage of the disease.

But as the disease gets worse the symptom and the diabetic retinopathy gets worse and patient may lose vision and it is irreversible.  

And because of the majority of disease process the patient may not have any symptoms or any affected vision that’s why patient may be unaware of the fact that they have diabetic retinopathy and therefore it is very important that they get seen regularly by an eye specialist to monitor their disease process in eye.

 

How diabetes cause blurry vision?

As it affects eye primarily by shut down of blood vessels or by making it leaky in eye.

In first case if they gets shut down then body responds to it by creating new blood vessels to carry blood to the areas that are affected by the shutdown blood vessels. 

Now this new blood vessel is useful for rest of the body but not for the eye because eye need clear space inside it for allowing light to enter it .

Inside the eye we have a clear gel material called vitreous body and it has to be clear so that light can go through it and hit the retina, which is like the camera film which allows image to be captured.

These new blood vessels that grows in diabetes  if they bleed into clear space in the eye then it affects the clarity significantly and therefore light can not transmits onto  the retina that will cause blurred vision.

How  daibetic retinopathy is treated?

Diabetic retinopathy have a wide spectrum of features and depending on those features different treatments are present.

So due to new blood vessels that are growing in the retina in response to the diabetes this needs to be dealt with by laser.

( new blood vessels growing in the eye is usually due to blood vessel shut down that causes retina closing down and this leads to factors being released which cause new blood vessels to grow).

So this is treated by applying laser to parts of the retina to reduce or dampen down the drive to create these new blood vessels.

It can take two or three sessions to apply laser and it can be little bit uncomfortable  but after that is usually requires no further treatment.

The aim of the laser is to reduce the eyes drive to create new blood vessels.

When should you see ophthalmologist for checking if you have diabetic retinopathy?

Diabetic retinopathy usually causes no symptoms until the disease is very far progressed. 

So it is advisable to visit to an eye specialist within six month or one year period  if you have diabetes for early diagnosis.