Aging and Disease

Diabetes can play havoc with your eyes, and sometimes there are no early
sumptoms. So you may have no idea anything is wrong until your eyesight is in
danger.

Here are the main eye problems that can be caused, or made worse, by diabetes.

Cataracts

These are often described as a clouding of the lens of the eye. They are treatable by
surgery in most cases.

Glaucoma

Our eyes are largely made up of fluid, and when the pressure of that fluid builds up
too much inside the eye, you have glaucoma. Left untreated, it can damage the optic
nerves, and even lead to blindness.

Diabetic retinopathy

Lining the back of our eyes is light-sensitive tissue known as the retina. The retina
contains very small blood vessels that can be damaged by diabetic retinopathy.
Sometimes there are symptoms such as blurred vision, but often you won’t even
know anything is wrong until the condition is well advanced. In the worse case, it
leads to blindness.

Early detection is the key to battling all of these conditions, and the best diagnostic
tool available is the dilated eye examination. This is a test in which special eye
drops temporarily enlarge your pupils, allowing the doctor to see the back of your
eyes. This test (which is painless) can detect cataracts, glaucoma or diabetic
retinopathy in their early, treatable stages.

Eyesight is precious, so if you have diabetes do yourself a favor and make an
appointment for your dilated eye examination. And then do it again every year from
now on.

Bob Fleming suffers from Type 2 diabetes, but he does everything he can to suffer as
little as possible! Visit his website at http://www.thediabetesinfoplace.com for
informative articles and resources, and sign up to receive
http://www.thediabetesinfoplace.com/ Bob’s free weekly diabetic-friendly dessert recipe

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