Diabetes can affect your eyes in a number of ways

It can damage the sensitive skin inside your eyes. It can also contribute to cataracts forming and cause your vision to fluctuate. If the fine network of blood vessels in your retina leak, this can cause significant damage to your vision. This is known as diabetic retinopathy.

Screening for Diabetes

If you have diabetes it’s important that you have regular screening for retinopathy, however this is not a substitute for your annual eye examination when we screen for all eye conditions.

Every time our optometrist examines your eyes we screen for early signs of diabetes. Should we detect any such change in your eyes we’ll give you our professional advice regarding your eye health and forward a report to your GP, referring you further as is necessary.

We highly recommend that all diabetic patients avail of our enhanced eye exam which includes Retinal Photography, enabling us to detect subtle changes in the health of your eyes at the earliest stage possible.

As a diabetic we recommend that you have your eyes examined once every year. As a diabetic you can avail of an NHS eye examination for FREE.

Changes to your vision in diabetes

Cataracts can develop earlier and progress more rapidly if you have diabetes. If your diabetes is not well controlled it can also cause your vision to rapidly change throughout the day.

If you notice any problems like this with your eyesight you should contact us immediately.

Maintaining good control of your diabetes will greatly reduce the risk and severity of changes in the health of your eyes from this condition. If your eyes are damaged as a result of diabetes, the earlier this is detected and treated the better the prognosis for preventing you from losing sight.

What can be done?

Most sight-threatening diabetic eye problems can be prevented with careful control of your condition and with suitable treatment if it is carried out promptly. It’s important to realise, however, that treatment aims to save the sight you have – not to completely reverse the damage that’s already done. If laser is used to treat the inside of your eyes, a beam of high intensity light will be focused with extreme precision to help seal the blood vessels that are leaking fluid into the retina.