Comprehensive eye exams can help detect diabetes early, sometimes sooner. These tests may also indicate a need for lifestyle or diet changes, better adherence to treatment, or the need to update medications. Are things looking a little confusing lately? Even if they aren't, a quick visit to the ophthalmologist for a complete eye exam can be the key to assessing your overall health status and possibly even identifying the onset of diabetes and diseases such as diabetic retinopathy or diabetic macular edema.
optometrists
can be the first line of defense in dealing with this manageable condition.While you may not go to your general practitioner every year for a complete physical exam and blood test, your annual optometrist's comprehensive dilated eye exam uses the latest testing technology to check for eye problems you may not even know you have, including diabetes eye problems. Diabetes, a condition that affects the way the body processes glucose (blood sugar), can cause vision to become. When blood sugar levels are high, this affects the ability to concentrate as fluid is removed from the eye tissue, often creating complications in the eyes of diabetics. Or you may see well, but the eye may reveal damage that indicates diabetes.
Going to the optometrist for a diabetic eye exam to see what's going on can help start the journey to lower blood sugar levels. If you've already been diagnosed with diabetes, it's more important than ever to keep in touch with your optometrist, who can examine your eyes for signs of any diabetic eye problem. While you're likely to be under the regular care of your family doctor or an endocrinologist, these visits are not a substitute for comprehensive dilated eye exams with an optometrist. Schedule an annual eye exam appointment to monitor your eyes to make sure your diabetes is well controlled and that there are no signs of possible complications of diabetic eye disease, such as retinal damage, cataracts and glaucoma.
Your optometrist is a health partner who can tell you how you are doing and if you need to increase eye care to live your best life. Using a high-powered microscope, the optometrist can examine structures in the eye, including blood vessels and optic nerves. Depending on the severity of your diabetes, your doctor may refer you to an ophthalmologist for a diagnosis of a diabetic eye condition. Treatments are available that can prevent diabetes-related eye problems from worsening, allowing a person to lead a healthy and normal life.
The doctor will then review the test results or tell you if more tests are needed. Whether it's mild eye disorders or something more serious, it's important for people with diabetes to have regular eye exams and exams, and to monitor their diabetes. To prevent serious vision loss from diseases such as diabetic retinopathy, it is very important to see your eye doctor, who can check for signs of this damage to blood vessels related to the eye. While it's true that diabetes is linked to several eye-related diseases and can even cause total vision loss, your ophthalmologist should not be the one to diagnose diabetes.
Standard eye exams don't detect diabetic retinopathy, but a dilated eye exam by an ophthalmologist or optometrist can detect diabetic retinopathy. However, people who may be genetically prone to diabetes should take special care with their eyesight, have regular checkups, and inform their ophthalmologist if they feel that their eyesight may be worsening for any reason. It's important to see a family doctor and have blood tests to diagnose diabetes or other conditions as you age. Your optometrist may ask you to come for additional eye exams if you have been diagnosed with diabetes.
However, an interesting fact that many people don't realize is that eye doctors can also detect a wide range of common health problems, even before the patient knows they have the problem at hand. Before the test, dilating drops are used to widen the pupil, so that light beams can focus on the back of the eye. Doctors of optometry can help identify underlying health conditions that are often detected first through an eye exam, and then they can refer specialists and other health professionals, such as family doctors. .
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