How Diabetes Affects Vision and What You Can Do About It

This post is sponsored by Regeneron’s Look To Your Future

If vision and eye care are not part of your diabetes management toolkit then you need to keep reading.

When people think about diabetes management, they often think about the direct effects of diabetes and what to do: blood sugar management, exercise, nutrition etc. Vision and eye care seem to be a forgotten, but are all too real aspect of diabetes management.

Diabetes, especially when left unmanaged, can cause a number of complications. As people with diabetes, we need to not only be aware, but proactive in managing our condition to reduce the risk of complications. There are a variety of diabetic eye diseases that can result as a complication of diabetes, but one in particular can often go unnoticed and lead to potential vision loss: Diabetic Retinopathy.

Diabetic Retinopathy
Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a common condition that can happen and progress silently over time, especially when higher a1c results are common. DR occurs when blood sugar damages blood vessels in the eye causing them to become weak or bulge or even leak blood in the retina. Nearly 1 in 2 people with diabetes develop or have DR, with the majority not knowing since there are usually no symptoms in the early stages – that’s over 7.7 million people!

DR is the leading cause of Diabetic Macular Edema (DME), where the damaged blood vessels in the eye leak and swell, causing vision impairment or even potential blindness. This is the most common cause of blindness associated with DR.

As people with diabetes, we have to not only manage our sugars but be sure to follow up with all our health care providers to make sure we are managing our full body as well. Now enough with the problems–what about solutions?

How to be Proactive with your Vision and Eye Care
There are a few ways to manage your eye care.

1. Talk with your doctor
Starting a dialogue with your primary care doctor, endocrinologist, optometrist, or anyone on your diabetes management healthcare team is crucial to being proactive with your vision and eye care! Have you had all the necessary eye health screenings? Do you have symptoms of low vision? Are you at higher risk for DR? Is your blood sugar management being optimized? These are all questions that you can discuss with your healthcare team to figure out the best plan of action for taking care of yourself and your vision!

2. Manage your overall health
After developing a plan with your doctor to best manage your blood sugars, be sure to strategize with them and go over your best options to make sure your blood pressure, cholesterol, and weight are healthy. Whether they suggest exercise, nutritional habit change, or medicine, your doctor will help you with a strategy that you need to be sure to carry out!

3. Quit smoking
Habits are hard to kick but not impossible. If you’re a smoker, talking with your doctor about what tactics might be best to help you quit smoking will also help to greatly reduce the risk and severity of DR.

4. Make sure you get screened yearly
Eye check-ups at least annually are recommended to spot early signs of DR or check in on DR/DME if you have already been diagnosed. The sooner you can detect these diseases, the sooner your medical team can act! By being proactive, you can greatly reduce risk of severe complications.

Vision & Diabetes
There are millions of people in the world who struggle with low or impaired vision. As people with diabetes, we need to do all that we can to manage our health and so we can do the things we love in life. Vision is an important part of this, so it is vital that we do our job to prevent what we can, treat what we can, and live our best lives by managing our condition. And even though diabetes management is not always a perfect science, as patients, we can still be proactive with our checkups, choices, and communication with our medical team to put ourselves in a less risky position.

Visit LookToYourFuture.com to learn more about the importance of regular checkups and how to protect your
eye health.