Diabetic Eye Care: Why Annual Exams Are Non-Negotiable

Living with diabetes involves a lot of upkeep, from measuring your blood glucose to managing your diet. All of these efforts can help prevent diabetic complications, and annual diabetic eye exams are no different.

Ophthalmologist Vicki Lin, MD, and optometrist Maryam Khatami, DO, encourage people with diabetes to come to iSight Vision Care once a year for a thorough diabetic eye exam. Here’s why annual eye exams are essential for your health while living with diabetes.

Early detection of hidden eye damage

Almost all diabetes complications can be traced back to one factor: high blood sugar. When your blood has high levels of glucose (sugar) for a long time, the sugar can damage various organs, tissues, nerves, and blood vessels. This includes tissues and blood vessels in your eyes.

Discovery of conditions that put your sight at risk

Eye exams look for early signs of diabetic eye disease that may one day cause blindness. Diabetic eye disease is a blanket term describing several eye conditions that diabetes can cause:

Diabetic retinopathy

This is the most common cause of vision loss in diabetes, but it often starts with no symptoms at all. Diabetic retinopathy happens when high blood sugar damages blood vessels in your eyes, which causes them to leak blood into the fluid inside your eyes.

Without treatment, some of the original blood vessels in your eye can close off. New, abnormal blood vessels form on the eye. They can lead to serious and irreversible vision problems.

Cataracts

Cataracts develop when the lens of your eye becomes clouded. With diabetes, this can happen when high blood sugar causes deposits to build up on the eye. If you have diabetes, you’re more likely to get cataracts at an early age.

Macular edema

Diabetic macular edema happens when diabetes causes the macula, a part of your eye that’s essential for seeing details, to swell.

Glaucoma

Diabetes can double your chance of developing glaucoma, which is damage to the optic nerve. It can also eventually cause blindness.

Prevention of vision loss

Vision loss from all types of diabetic eye disease can be prevented if you detect these conditions early. That’s why it’s crucial to get a diabetic eye exam about once a year. Your eye doctor looks for early signs of diabetic eye disease that you wouldn’t be able to detect yourself.

In some cases, people with diabetes need eye exams more frequently than once a year. Talk to your doctor about how often you should schedule diabetic eye exams to check for signs of eye disease, and mention any vision changes you notice right away.