Diabetes is a global plague and America is not excluded from it. In fact, statistics emerging from the American Diabetes Association reveals that over 23 million Americans have been affected by this condition. Even aside from the worrisome 23 million, another 7 million people in the United States are yet to be diagnosed.
Diabetes fundamentally arises from a condition whereby the pancreas lacks the capacity to sufficiently produce insulin. Another scenario of diabetes is a situation whereby the metabolic process of your body doesn’t allow for the proper utilization of the insulin the pancreas produces. Now, the unfortunate reality here is that diabetes is strongly linked to a host of eye diseases, due to diabetes ramping up your vulnerability to certain eye conditions. Let us look at some of these eye conditions closely associated with diabetes.
Diabetic Retinopathy
A lot of the cases of diabetic retinopathy recorded worldwide are initiated by diabetes in the patient. Talking about this condition, retinopathy can be greatly triggered when your blood sugar levels surge beyond control. When an unhealthy rise in your blood sugar level occurs, the blood vessels in the eye could be damaged. Such damage can prompt microscopic hemorrhages which could blotch your vision.
When this occurs, your eye could attempt to remedy the situation by developing fresh blood cells as the damage (earlier referred to) would cut down on the supply of blood to the retina. When the eye attempts to improvise by the remedial growth of new blood cells, the new blood cells become susceptible to bleeding, based on their fragility. Should this condition persist, it can result in macular edema which causes your vision to blur eventually drifting into blindness.
Glaucoma: Another offspring of Diabetes
Glaucoma has the tendency to accumulate pressure inside your eye. Such pent-up pressure can harm your optic nerve. Sustained pressure in your eyes can lead the condition to degenerate into permanent blindness. However, glaucoma is closely related to diabetes as diabetes is known to breed the eye condition. Glaucoma is very dangerous and it would help if you could spot it in its early phases. Symptoms like tunnel vision, redness of the eye and pain in the eye are indicative of glaucoma.
Diabetes is also responsible for the onset of cataracts
Your lens is loaded with vital proteins. When cataracts occur, these proteins in your eyes are clustered, lumping up dangerously. Such accumulation of these proteins can block your vision due to the opaque lump they form. When you have diabetes, your chances of developing cataracts are multiplied by five times.
What remedies protect your eyes if you have diabetes?
The first and most common way out of all these eye conditions is addressing the root cause, which is the diabetes. For that, you have to keep your blood sugar levels well under check. Then there is also the place of caution. Once you notice any irregularity in your vision, you should waste no time in consulting your eye doctor. When you detect any of these eye diseases in the early phases, you have about a 90% chance to avoid blindness.
