Diabetes
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Professional Contact Lens and Optical Clinic
Optometrists located in Farmington Hills, MI
Diabetes can cause many health complications, including problems with your eyes. Diabetic retinopathy is a leading cause of blindness and the most common diabetic eye disorder, but it isn’t the only eye condition that affects people with diabetes. At Professional Contact Lens and Optical Clinic, optometrist Tiffany Zair-Yalda, OD, helps people with diabetes in Farmington Hills, Michigan, protect their eye health with yearly exams, advanced screenings, and early treatment if complications arise. To schedule your diabetic eye exam, call the office today, or book an appointment online.
Diabetes Q & A
What eye diseases affect people with diabetes?
Patients with diabetes particularly risk developing diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and cataracts. These conditions are called diabetic eye disease.
Diabetes doubles your risk of developing glaucoma. People with diabetes also have a five times greater chance of developing cataracts than patients who don’t have diabetes.
What is diabetic retinopathy?
When you manage your blood sugar poorly, small blood vessels in your eyes are damaged, causing two stages of diabetic retinopathy:
Nonproliferative stage
Some of these damaged blood vessels in your retina cause tiny aneurysms (bulges in the blood vessels) to develop. These swollen areas block the blood supply to the retina and cause fluid to back up.
As more blood vessels are affected, they can leak and contribute to diabetic macular edema, a swelling in the macula, an area of the retina.
Proliferative stage
Your body responds to the damaged blood vessels in your eyes by growing new vessels. These new blood vessels are fragile, so they leak blood and other fluids.
As the fluid builds up, diabetic macular edema gets worse, causing a loss of central vision and, in severe cases, can cause a detached retina. You risk complete vision loss if you fail to get a detached retina treated immediately.
How are patients with diabetes monitored for eye disease?
When you have diabetes, it’s vital that you have yearly dilated eye exams. These screenings can detect diabetic eye disease. They can also monitor retinal changes that have already been diagnosed.
Dr. Zair-Yalda takes retinal images to track the development of diabetic retinopathy over time. She can compare previous retinal photographs to your current situation to detect even the smallest changes.
How is diabetic eye disease treated?
Patients with diabetic eye disease should take steps to keep their blood sugar well-managed with diet, exercise, and medication. When you keep your blood sugar within a normal range, you have a good chance of preventing diabetic eye disease or slowing it down.
Dr. Zair-Yalda can help you manage diabetic eye disease so that you avoid complications and loss of vision. She’ll tailor your treatment to your diagnosis and how bad the disease has gotten.
For glaucoma, she offers medications to help control your eye pressure. You might need surgery to repair cataracts. Dr. Zair-Yalda can refer you to an expert surgeon.
If your diabetic retinopathy has gotten to the point where you need laser surgery or injections, Dr. Zair-Yalda can refer you to the best surgeons in the area. Laser surgery and injections shrink abnormal blood vessels and stop the growth of new blood vessels.
If you suffer from diabetes, schedule your regular eye health exam with Professional Contact Lens and Optical Clinic. Call today or use the online tool to make an appointment.
