Diabetic retinopathy

Diabetes has become a very common disease now. The incidence rate of this disease is very high among the elderly. It is also a disease that poses a serious threat to our health. Diabetes is generally difficult to cure. Some patients' conditions will become more and more serious, and many complications will occur. The most common one is diabetic retinopathy. This phenomenon is very harmful to patients.

Everyone should know about diabetes. There should be many people around us suffering from this disease. The treatment of diabetes is very difficult, and it keeps recurring. The condition will become more and more serious, and even many complications will appear, the most common of which is diabetic retinopathy.

Is diabetic retinopathy serious?

Clinically, the disease is divided into two main stages of development, namely non-proliferative and proliferative lesions, depending on whether there is neovascularization in the retina. During the non-proliferative phase, the patient's retina may develop microaneurysms, hemorrhages, hard exudates, cotton-wool spots, etc. Due to the destruction of the blood-retinal barrier, plasma components leak into the retinal tissue, leading to retinal edema. When edema occurs in the macula, it causes a decrease in central vision. The most important fundus changes in proliferative diabetic retinopathy are neovascularization and corresponding complications, which are mainly manifested as the growth of proliferative neovascularization along the retinal surface or entering the vitreous to form a proliferative membrane. When new blood vessels rupture, it can cause retinal and vitreous hemorrhage, and the contraction of the proliferative membrane can also cause tractional retinal detachment. If not treated promptly, it will eventually cause neovascular glaucoma, which is an extremely serious eye complication of diabetes. In addition to causing vision loss in patients, it will also cause persistent eye pain, headache, nausea, vomiting, etc., causing great pain to patients.

If diabetic retinopathy develops to a certain extent and macular edema, retinal neovascularization or large-area retinal ischemia occurs, regardless of whether the patient's vision is affected, timely laser treatment should be carried out to prevent further deterioration of the disease as much as possible. The purpose of retinal laser photocoagulation is to destroy the retinal tissue in a pathological state, causing it to scar, thereby reducing the retinal oxygen consumption and alleviating the hypoxic state of the remaining normal retinal tissue. If the diabetic patient's retinopathy has reached the middle or late stages, with vitreous hemorrhage that is not absorbed for a long time (generally observed for 3 months), vitreous proliferation, and tractional retinal detachment, then vitrectomy surgery must be performed to preserve the remaining vision to the maximum extent possible.

Since diabetic retinopathy has no obvious symptoms in the early stages, patients often do not take it seriously. Once they experience decreased vision and go to the hospital for treatment, most of them are already in the middle or late stages of the disease, and the treatment effect is very poor, or even incurable. Therefore, diabetic patients should do the following: (1) strictly control blood sugar to prevent or delay the development of retinopathy and reduce visual impairment; (2) always be vigilant and perform fundus examinations regularly to achieve early detection and early treatment to avoid late complications; (3) For patients with severe diabetic retinopathy, although surgical treatment cannot cure the disease, it can effectively prevent further deterioration of vision.

Precautions for diabetic retinopathy

In daily life, we often hear or see that some diabetic patients have decreased vision or even sudden vision loss. Only after going to the hospital for examination did they find out that they had diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy is the most common ocular complication of diabetes. It is a leaky, occlusive and proliferative microvascular disease that occurs in the retinal tissue within the eye. The occurrence and development of the disease are closely related to the type and course of diabetes. About 50% of patients with type 1 diabetes with a course of more than 7 years will develop the disease, and 90% of those with a course of 17 to 25 years will develop it. The fundus of patients with type 2 diabetes with a course of less than 10 years is basically normal. About 26% of patients will develop diabetic retinopathy within 10 to 15 years, rising to 43% within 15 to 20 years, and the incidence rate for those over 20 years can reach 100%. If combined with hypertension and hyperlipidemia, the incidence rate will be even higher.

Diabetic retinopathy is already a very serious manifestation of diabetes. Such a condition has a great impact on patients. Patients with diabetes must be able to actively seek treatment in their daily lives, especially paying special attention to their daily diet. They must pay attention to sugar control, a reasonable diet, and scientific diet therapy to be able to control the disease well.