People with diabetes are usually quite vigilant about what they eat. They maintain proper exercise routines, and they make sure they visit their endocrinologist regularly for checkup. But when it comes to monitoring and taking care of their eye health, their efforts are often found lacking, with a large-scale study revealing that six out of ten people with diabetes skip on their eye appointments due to various reasons.
Do you have diabetes? If yes, how often do you see your optometrist (or ophthalmologist) in a year?
Diabetes affects many areas of your body. One of the very first and most seriously affected areas are your eyes.
The disease increases your risk for eye disorders, such as cataracts, glaucoma – and diabetic retinopathy.
Diabetic retinopathy is quite common in people with diabetes. According to one estimate, more than 7 million people in the U.S suffer from the eye condition.
What is diabetic retinopathy?
Diabetic retinopathy is an eye disease characterized by the swelling of blood vessels in the eye. These swelled blood vessels can leak, or sometimes can even get completely blocked, stoppinghealthy blood flow to your eyes. In response, your eyes grow new blood vessels.
However, these new blood vessels are themselves fragile and may bleed in the vitreous. If the bleeding is left unaddressed, in other words if the disease gets worse, it can lead to blindness.
If a diabetes patient develops diabetic retinopathy, doctors have two treatment options: laser therapy or anti-VEGF therapy.
The latter is performed using needles, where an ophthalmologist injects the medicine directly into the eyes of the patient.
This treatment is usually preferred by patients over laser therapy for its low cost and the fact that it is “not laser”.
But the downside to this therapy is that it needs to be carried out regularly and often indefinitely. What does that mean for you?
You guessed it right; no skipped appointments with your eye doctor.
Yes, we understand it could sometimes be difficult to keep the visits in check, but this little inconvenience could help maintain your eye health and avoid a potentially dangerous medical situation in the future.
At Dr. Gilberg & Associates, we have been serving our clients in North Miami area with state-of-the-art ophthalmology care for the last ten years. We pride ourselves on providing our clients high-quality and affordable medical treatment for a variety of their eye-related problems. Learn more about our services eye doctor near me.