Diabetes can cause serious damage to eyes and is a leading cause of blindness in the U.S.
But there are ways to prevent permanent damage and preserve vision.
Today Dr. Kristi Backer-Palmer, an optometrist with Allina Health Coon Rapids Clinic, will provide us with insights into how diabetes impacts eye health and on how to protect your vision when managing diabetes.
Selected Podcast
Diabetes and Eye Health
Featured Speaker:
Kristi Backer-Palmer, OD - Optometrist
Dr. Kristi Backer-Palmer is a board-certified optometrist whose professional interests include diabetes, glaucoma, macular degeneration and children's exams. Transcription:
Diabetes and Eye Health
Melanie Cole (Host): Diabetes can cause serious damage to the eyes, and it’s a leading cause of blindness in the US. But there are ways to prevent permanent damage and preserve your vision. My guest today is Dr. Christie Becker Palmer. She’s an optometrist with Allina Health Coon Rapids Clinic, welcome to the show, Dr. Becker. So tell us a little bit about how diabetes affects vision and eye health.
Dr. Becker (Guest): Diabetes can impact the eye health in lots of different ways. First of all, it can cause variation or fluctuation in your vision, which can cause blurring. And sometimes you may need to change your glasses prescription. But secondly and most importantly, the eye is considered an end organ, kind of like your hands and your feet, and so diabetes can affect that area most prominently, and it can cause damage by causing changes in the blood vessel and reducing blood flow to the back of your eye and even can cause damage to the retina. And this is called diabetic retinopathy and is one of the leading causes of blindness in the United States.
Melanie: So explain a little bit more about diabetic retinopathy.
Dr. Becker: Sure. Diabetic retinopathy is caused by damages to the blood vessels in the back of the eye, or the retina. These blood vessels sometimes can swell or become blocked, and in some cases these blood vesselseven leak. The diabetic retinopathy comes in three different forms. It comes in mild, moderate, or severe. Most of the time, mild diabetic retinopathy can be reversed, but moderate or severe diabetic retinopathy will need to be treated either with some laser treatments or sometimes injection into the eye.
Melanie: And how would someone know if they’re starting to suffer from diabetic retinopathy?
Dr. Becker: With the mild diabetic retinopathy, there’s really not a lot of symptoms. But with moderate and severe diabetic retinopathy, sometimes it can create vision changes, such as blurring of your vision. You can get blind spots in your vision. You can even have changes in your peripheral vision, or sometimes you can actually have rapidly declining vision, where one moment you see really good and the next minute everything’s blurry. And a lot of times though, really, the only way to find the changes in the back of the eye is to have your diabetic eye exam.
Melanie: Before we get to treatments, how often do you recommend someone with diabetes, whether it’s type one or type two, get an eye exam?
Dr. Becker: It’s recommended that you have an eye exam if you’re diabetic every year, and that would be a dilated eye exam.
Melanie: So now, what kind of treatments are available if somebody is starting to suffer some of the symptoms you’ve spoken about?
Dr. Becker: Well, if we find that there’s justsome mild diabetic changes going on in the back of the eye, sometimes it’s just getting better control of your diabetes. And by getting better control of your blood sugar, that will reverse mild changes on the retina. But if you have more severe or moderate changes where you actually have some leaky blood vessels on new blood vessel growth, we would refer you to an optomologist or a retinal specialist, where they would some laser work on the back of the eye to help reduce the new blood vessel growth, or they may inject some anti-inflammatory medications into the eye to reduce swelling of your retina.
Melanie: Who’s most at risk for these types of problems?
Dr. Becker: The people who have type one diabetes probably have the highest risk of having retinopathy just because they’ve had the diabetes for so much longer, whereas the type two diabetics are also at risk if they are not managing their diabetes. However, their risk level is relatively low compared to type one.
Melanie: So what other types of eye problems can diabetes cause?
Dr. Becker: Diabetes can actually increase your risk for glaucoma as well as it can increase the chances of having cataract form at an earlier age. And it does also relate to having a drier eye.
Melanie: So give us a little bit of prevention, Dr. Becker, to prevent eye problems and keep healthy eyes if you’re somebody with diabetes.
Dr. Becker: One of the most important thing in prevention for somebody who’s diabetic is just basically controlling your diabetes, keeping your blood schedules as stable as possible and continuing to follow up with your primary care doctor or your diabetic doctor as well as having your annual dilated diabetic eye exam.
Melanie: And what about somebody with type two diabetes? Obviously, trying to get it under control. Can the medications, insulin, whatever you happen to be on, help prevent diabetic retinopathy?
Dr. Becker: The medications that they take for diabetes are basically to help them control your blood sugars and to keep them as stable as possible. And by keeping your blood sugars as consistent as you can and keeping your diabetes as controlled as possible, that’s what's going to help give you some leverage at preventing diabetic retinopathy. There are some cases with type one diabetics where they’ve just had the disease for 25, 30 years where their risk is just higher even with control, but the best thing to do is just, again, to control the blood sugars and keep the disease as controlled as possible.
Melanie: Is blindness something that is going to happen, or can it be stopped in the process?
Dr. Becker: Blindness is not inevitable, so it is something that can be controlled if you’re having your diabetic eye exam every year. It’s one of those things that it is treatable. The retinopathy is for the most part is treatable. So I would say no, it is not inevitable.
Melanie: So speak about the laser treatments that you mentioned that might help somebody that’s starting to get into more than mild retinopathy. What can they expect? What is it like?
Dr. Becker: In no situations -- I actually don’t perform that procedure, but I do have a retina specialist that does those procedures for us. What I’ve heard about the procedure is that with one of them to help control and reduce leakage of the blood vessels in the back of the eye. They will go in and do what are called spot laser treatments, called TRPs, and this is where a series of laser treatments are done inside the eye. Most people report that it’s uncomfortable to have it done, but that’s the biggest complaint about it.
Melanie: And Dr. Becker, when should you see a doctor?
Dr. Becker: Well, we recommend that anybody who is recently diagnosed with diabetes should have a baseline diabetic eye exam, and then we recommend having that eye exam every year to help maintain an idea of where things are happening with your eyes. The other times that it’s very important is that you will start noticing a sudden change in your vision or a sudden loss of vision, then I would recommend contacting your eye care professional right away. Or if you start noticing symptoms like blurring of your vision or changes in your side vision or anything like that, it would be recommended that you get in to see your eye care professional and have them check you out to make sure there aren't any changes happening on your retina.
Melanie: So in just the last couple of minutes, Dr. Becker, give your best advice for people with diabetes in terms of the health of their eyes, and where can people go if they have questions or want more information.
Dr. Becker: Well, just to reiterate, the most important thing when you’re diabetic is just to maintain control of your blood sugar levels and to maintain control of your disease. That’s the best thing that you can do for prevention. If you have any questions, feel free to contact your eye care professional. I know that they would be happy to answer any questions for you as well as your primary care doctor or your diabetic educator are very good sources of information as well.
Melanie: Thank you so much. You’re listening to the Wellcast with Allina Health. For more information, you can go to allinahealth.org. That’s allinahealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening, and have a great day.
Diabetes and Eye Health
Melanie Cole (Host): Diabetes can cause serious damage to the eyes, and it’s a leading cause of blindness in the US. But there are ways to prevent permanent damage and preserve your vision. My guest today is Dr. Christie Becker Palmer. She’s an optometrist with Allina Health Coon Rapids Clinic, welcome to the show, Dr. Becker. So tell us a little bit about how diabetes affects vision and eye health.
Dr. Becker (Guest): Diabetes can impact the eye health in lots of different ways. First of all, it can cause variation or fluctuation in your vision, which can cause blurring. And sometimes you may need to change your glasses prescription. But secondly and most importantly, the eye is considered an end organ, kind of like your hands and your feet, and so diabetes can affect that area most prominently, and it can cause damage by causing changes in the blood vessel and reducing blood flow to the back of your eye and even can cause damage to the retina. And this is called diabetic retinopathy and is one of the leading causes of blindness in the United States.
Melanie: So explain a little bit more about diabetic retinopathy.
Dr. Becker: Sure. Diabetic retinopathy is caused by damages to the blood vessels in the back of the eye, or the retina. These blood vessels sometimes can swell or become blocked, and in some cases these blood vesselseven leak. The diabetic retinopathy comes in three different forms. It comes in mild, moderate, or severe. Most of the time, mild diabetic retinopathy can be reversed, but moderate or severe diabetic retinopathy will need to be treated either with some laser treatments or sometimes injection into the eye.
Melanie: And how would someone know if they’re starting to suffer from diabetic retinopathy?
Dr. Becker: With the mild diabetic retinopathy, there’s really not a lot of symptoms. But with moderate and severe diabetic retinopathy, sometimes it can create vision changes, such as blurring of your vision. You can get blind spots in your vision. You can even have changes in your peripheral vision, or sometimes you can actually have rapidly declining vision, where one moment you see really good and the next minute everything’s blurry. And a lot of times though, really, the only way to find the changes in the back of the eye is to have your diabetic eye exam.
Melanie: Before we get to treatments, how often do you recommend someone with diabetes, whether it’s type one or type two, get an eye exam?
Dr. Becker: It’s recommended that you have an eye exam if you’re diabetic every year, and that would be a dilated eye exam.
Melanie: So now, what kind of treatments are available if somebody is starting to suffer some of the symptoms you’ve spoken about?
Dr. Becker: Well, if we find that there’s justsome mild diabetic changes going on in the back of the eye, sometimes it’s just getting better control of your diabetes. And by getting better control of your blood sugar, that will reverse mild changes on the retina. But if you have more severe or moderate changes where you actually have some leaky blood vessels on new blood vessel growth, we would refer you to an optomologist or a retinal specialist, where they would some laser work on the back of the eye to help reduce the new blood vessel growth, or they may inject some anti-inflammatory medications into the eye to reduce swelling of your retina.
Melanie: Who’s most at risk for these types of problems?
Dr. Becker: The people who have type one diabetes probably have the highest risk of having retinopathy just because they’ve had the diabetes for so much longer, whereas the type two diabetics are also at risk if they are not managing their diabetes. However, their risk level is relatively low compared to type one.
Melanie: So what other types of eye problems can diabetes cause?
Dr. Becker: Diabetes can actually increase your risk for glaucoma as well as it can increase the chances of having cataract form at an earlier age. And it does also relate to having a drier eye.
Melanie: So give us a little bit of prevention, Dr. Becker, to prevent eye problems and keep healthy eyes if you’re somebody with diabetes.
Dr. Becker: One of the most important thing in prevention for somebody who’s diabetic is just basically controlling your diabetes, keeping your blood schedules as stable as possible and continuing to follow up with your primary care doctor or your diabetic doctor as well as having your annual dilated diabetic eye exam.
Melanie: And what about somebody with type two diabetes? Obviously, trying to get it under control. Can the medications, insulin, whatever you happen to be on, help prevent diabetic retinopathy?
Dr. Becker: The medications that they take for diabetes are basically to help them control your blood sugars and to keep them as stable as possible. And by keeping your blood sugars as consistent as you can and keeping your diabetes as controlled as possible, that’s what's going to help give you some leverage at preventing diabetic retinopathy. There are some cases with type one diabetics where they’ve just had the disease for 25, 30 years where their risk is just higher even with control, but the best thing to do is just, again, to control the blood sugars and keep the disease as controlled as possible.
Melanie: Is blindness something that is going to happen, or can it be stopped in the process?
Dr. Becker: Blindness is not inevitable, so it is something that can be controlled if you’re having your diabetic eye exam every year. It’s one of those things that it is treatable. The retinopathy is for the most part is treatable. So I would say no, it is not inevitable.
Melanie: So speak about the laser treatments that you mentioned that might help somebody that’s starting to get into more than mild retinopathy. What can they expect? What is it like?
Dr. Becker: In no situations -- I actually don’t perform that procedure, but I do have a retina specialist that does those procedures for us. What I’ve heard about the procedure is that with one of them to help control and reduce leakage of the blood vessels in the back of the eye. They will go in and do what are called spot laser treatments, called TRPs, and this is where a series of laser treatments are done inside the eye. Most people report that it’s uncomfortable to have it done, but that’s the biggest complaint about it.
Melanie: And Dr. Becker, when should you see a doctor?
Dr. Becker: Well, we recommend that anybody who is recently diagnosed with diabetes should have a baseline diabetic eye exam, and then we recommend having that eye exam every year to help maintain an idea of where things are happening with your eyes. The other times that it’s very important is that you will start noticing a sudden change in your vision or a sudden loss of vision, then I would recommend contacting your eye care professional right away. Or if you start noticing symptoms like blurring of your vision or changes in your side vision or anything like that, it would be recommended that you get in to see your eye care professional and have them check you out to make sure there aren't any changes happening on your retina.
Melanie: So in just the last couple of minutes, Dr. Becker, give your best advice for people with diabetes in terms of the health of their eyes, and where can people go if they have questions or want more information.
Dr. Becker: Well, just to reiterate, the most important thing when you’re diabetic is just to maintain control of your blood sugar levels and to maintain control of your disease. That’s the best thing that you can do for prevention. If you have any questions, feel free to contact your eye care professional. I know that they would be happy to answer any questions for you as well as your primary care doctor or your diabetic educator are very good sources of information as well.
Melanie: Thank you so much. You’re listening to the Wellcast with Allina Health. For more information, you can go to allinahealth.org. That’s allinahealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening, and have a great day.