What is Diabetic Retinopathy?

Diabetes is a lifelong condition and can cause several health complications. Your eyes are one part of your body that can be affected.

Diabetes can cause blood vessels in the retina to become blocked, to leak or to grow incorrectly. The type of diabetic retinopathy you have depends on how badly your blood vessels are affected by diabetes. There are different types of retinopathy:

• Background diabetic retinopathy: Background retinopathy does not usually affect your sight, but your eyes will need to be monitored carefully to make sure your retinopathy doesn’t become worse. 

• Proliferative diabetic retinopathy: If background retinopathy gets worse, many of the retinal blood vessels become damaged or blocked. When these changes affect a large area of your retina, blood supply to the retina is reduced. The body tries to fix this by growing new blood vessels on the retinal surface or into the vitreous gel. Unfortunately, these new vessels are weak, and they bleed very easily, which may affect your vision. 

• Diabetic maculopathy and diabetic macular oedema: Diabetic maculopathy is when your macula is affected by retinopathy. If the blood vessels near the macula are leaky, fluid can build up at the macula and cause macular swelling. This is called diabetic macular oedema (DMO) and it can cause vision to be blurred and distorted, as well as making colours appear washed out.

Information Source: RNIB website  

The photo at the top of the page shows how someone with diabetic retinopathy might see their friends and family. 

To minimise the risk of developing diabetic retinopathy people with diabetes should ensure they control their blood sugar levels, blood pressure and cholesterol and attend regular diabetic eye screening appointments. 

If are struggling with sight loss as a result of diabetes please get in touch and we can help to support you.