By DR MAXWELL ADEYEMI

People with diabetes are more likely to get eye diseases than people without diabetes. As the diseases progresses, diabetic eye disease and other ocular complications become more evident, especially if the blood sugar is not properly managed.

Diabetic eye diseases include diabetic retinopathy, diabetic macular edema, cataracts, and glaucoma. Over time, diabetes can cause damage to your eyes that can lead to poor vision or even blindness. Often, there are no warning signs of diabetic eye disease or vision loss when damage first develops. A full, dilated eye exam helps your doctor find and treat eye problems early, often before much vision loss can occur.

How diabetes affects the eyes

Temporary blurry vision when the blood sugar is too high, but patients are not likely to have vision loss in the short term from high blood glucose. People sometimes have blurry vision for a few days or weeks when their blood sugar is elevated. This can change fluid levels or cause swelling in the tissues of your eyes that help the eyes to focus. This type of blurry vision is temporary and goes away when the glucose level gets closer to normal.

Long term eye damage occurs if the blood glucose stays high over time. This can damage the tiny blood vessels at the back of the eyes. This damage can begin during pre diabetes, when blood glucose is higher than normal, but not high enough to result in a diabetes diagnosis.

Damaged blood vessels may leak fluid and cause swelling. New, weak blood vessels may also begin to grow. These blood vessels can bleed into the middle part of the eye, lead to scarring, or cause dangerously high pressure inside the eye.

The major eye diseases that can threaten the eyes in diabetics are:

Diabetic retinopathy

The retina is the inner lining at the back of each eye. The retina senses light and turns it into signals that the brain decodes, so we can see the world around us. Damaged blood vessels can harm the retina, causing a disease called diabetic retinopathy. In early diabetic retinopathy, blood vessels can weaken, bulge, or leak into the retina. This stage is called non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy. If the disease gets worse, some blood vessels close off, which causes new blood vessels to grow, or proliferate, on the surface of the retina. This stage is called proliferative diabetic retinopathy. These abnormal new blood vessels can lead to serious vision problems.

Diabetic macular edema

The part of the retina that we need for reading, driving, and seeing faces is called the macula. Diabetes can lead to swelling in the macula, which is called diabetic macular edema. Over time, this disease can destroy the sharp vision in this part of the eye, leading to partial vision loss or blindness. Macular edema usually develops in people who already have other signs of diabetic retinopathy.

Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases