Diabetic retinopathy affects the retina, which is like the camera film of the eye. This is a disease of the small blood vessels supplying the retina. The vessels close prematurely, leak blood or fat or grow abnormally. These vascular changes are occurring within all the body’s organs in a diabetic patient and may lead to high blood pressure, numbness in the feet, kidney failure, strokes and heart attacks.

Fortunately, your ophthalmologist at Metwest Eye Centre can view these vessels directly and painlessly within the eye and can predict the health of the other organs. Once diabetes is diagnosed it is important for the eyes to be examined regularly for diabetic retinopathy. This is useful not only in preventing blindness, but also to help your doctors keep your general health at its best.

At first diagnosis of your diabetes – this is important to determine your baseline health, as you may not know how long your sugars have been high.

Children with diabetes are usually examined at 10 years old, or 5 years after diagnosis (which ever is later).

Pregnant women should be seen in the first trimester.

If all is well, we will need to see you every 12 to 18 months. If there are changes occurring within the eye or if there is a deterioration of your general health, we may need to see you more often.

Most often there will be no symptoms that you would notice despite the diabetic changes slowly occurring at the back of your eye.

Retinopathy may be present at the diagnosis of your diabetes, particularly in late-onset diabetes where the blood sugars gradually rise and it is difficult to pick the exact time when the diabetes started.

You will have your vision checked, as well as the pressure in your eye measured (see glaucoma).

The pupils will then be enlarged (dilated) with drops so our ophthalmologist can view the retina.

This is a test in which we inject a dye (fluorescein) into your arm to find out if any of the blood vessels in the retina are leaking, and whereabouts they are. After injecting the dye the photographs of the retina are taken which help diagnose diabetic retinopathy and guide the doctor as to what treatment to use.

You do not need to fast before this test, though some people feel queasy during the injection. Your skin will tinged yellow by the dye, but this will only last 24 – 48 hours as you pass the dye from your urine (which will be bright yellow).

Good control of your sugars has been shown to delay the development of retinopathy. Your local doctor and dietitian can help you with this as well as giving attention to ceasing smoking, your weight, blood pressure, dietary fats and cholesterol. All these factors maintain your general health as well as your vision. Lipidl has also been shown to reduce the progression of more advanced retinopathy.

Regular eye review will detect retinopathy early and allow for timely treatment, thus minimising the risk of severe visual loss.