One of the complications of diabetes that is often overlooked is eye disease. Elevated blood glucose levels damage the small blood vessels in your retina, and can cause them to burst, or make them unable to deliver adequate amounts of blood to your eyes. When the blood vessels in your retina are damaged, it's a condition called diabetic retinopathy. It usually affects both eyes, and can worsen until you have completely lost your sight. In addition to diabetic retinopathy, diabetes increases your risk of developing other common eye diseases, such as macular degeneration and glaucoma. It's very important for diabetics to pay attention to their eye health in order to prevent eye disease and loss of vision. If you're diabetic, here's what you can do in order to protect your eyes.

Quit Using Tobacco

Tobacco use is a preventable lifestyle risk factor that increases your chances of developing several eye diseases, such as glaucoma and macular degeneration. If you're diabetic, you already have an increased risk of developing eye disease, so it becomes even more important to stop smoking in order to protect your eye health. Your primary care physician can provide you with resources that can help you quit.

Control Your Blood Sugars

Elevated blood glucose levels are the primary cause behind diabetics developing eye disease more easily. Work with your primary care physician in order to keep your blood glucose levels controlled. You'll greatly reduce the damage being done to your eyes, and help delay the onset of diseases such as diabetic retinopathy.

See Your Ophthalmologist for a Yearly Checkup

The early stages of diabetic retinopathy often don't cause any symptoms. However, your ophthalmology specialist can detect it during a full eye exam that includes dilation of your eye. If you're diabetic, regular eye exams are a necessary part of your diabetes care plan. Eye exams allow your ophthalmologist to track the progression of diabetic retinopathy and start treatment, such as steroid injections to reduce swelling, as early as possible to slow the damage retinopathy does to your eyes.

Pay Attention to the Symptoms of Diabetic Retinopathy

Apart from your yearly eye exams, you'll want to schedule an appointment with your ophthalmologist if you begin experiencing symptoms related to diabetic retinopathy. Symptoms include seeing an increased amount of floaters in your vision (especially after physical activity), cloudy or blurry vision, light sensitivity and visible spots of blood appearing in your eye. These may be signs that your diabetic retinopathy is worsening. Your ophthalmologist may recommend surgery that drains a small amount of vitreous fluid from your eye in order to relieve pressure and protect the blood vessels in your retina in order to prevent diabetic retinopathy from progressing. 

Diabetic retinopathy can progress until it causes total loss of vision, so it's important to work closely with an ophthalmologist in order to monitor and slow its progression. If you have diabetes and you're not regularly seeing an ophthalmologist, you should start. Schedule your first visit with a local ophthalmologist and make plans to see him or her yearly for an eye exam. You'll help protect your vision and delay the harm that elevated blood glucose levels pose to your eye health.

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