Blindness and loss of vision are very serious things, yet many adults become blind every year due to a complication of diabetes called diabetic retinopathy.

Diabetes effects almost 8% of the population of the US according to 2007 estimates. Of those who have diabetes, staggering numbers will experience problems due to diabetic retinopathy including partial loss of vision, and even blindness.

I am personally one of those diabetics that has suffered from diabetic retinopathy and I had little or no clue that I would be affected by it.

Some Background

I was 22 when I found out that I had a rare type of diabetes. The particular type I have is called MODY (Mature Onset Diabetes of the Young ). It effects about 2% of all people with diabetes and those who have it do not tend to exhibit a few of the more obvious symptoms of those who have mature onset diabetes. The most notable one being the mature part.? Most people with mature onset diabetes are over the age of 40 and overweight. I was obviously not 40, and at an athletic 170 lbs and 6′ 1″, I was certainly not overweight.

As it turns out I had exhibited signs of the illness from my teens and so by the time I was 22 a lot of damage had already been done. Being the young man that I was, and in denial, I didn’t start to take care of things right away.

Then I started to notice my vision blurring and some spots in my eyes, which I now know are called floaters. Then one day I was out having a drink with some friends and I saw blood in one of my eyes. This was not the sort of thing that you look in the mirror and see bloodshot eyes, but the sort of thing that I describe as looking through a windshield (windscreen for you english folk) with blood splashed on the inside.

My eyes had been suffering the consequences of uncontrolled diabetes for too long and were starting to tell me they couldn’t take the abuse.

I was scared. I had always had good vision and this was definitely not right. Time to cash in on my health insurance. Thankfully I was at least wise enough to have some of that.

I went to see a retinal specialist who put some drops in my eyes and ran extensive tests including one where they ran a radioactive looking dye (it’s not actually radioactive it just looks like it) called fluorescein in my eyes so they could see what was happening with them.

The Verdict

As it turned out I had diabetic retinopathy and things weren’t looking so good in there.

It was explained to me that the damage was pretty advanced and that I would definitely have to have surgery. My doctor said that there were 2 types of surgery. One called Vitrectomy was a more invasive and a less desirable option and my doctor would only go that route if we absolutely had to but felt that the condition my eyes were in we could use laser surgery / laser treatment to effectively stop the damage.

The type of laser treatment he used was a scatter laser treatment where he would use a laser to make hundreds (it may have even been thousands) of burns in the effected areas to reduce the damage that had been caused as a result of the retinopathy. The laser treatment is an out patient procedure performed in the doctors office and the laser is pointed into the dilated pupil of the eye. Local anesthesia is given in the form of special eye drops. As is typical with the scatter laser treatment my treatment spanned over multiple visits (mine took 4 visits).

I had suffered some loss of night and peripheral vision but most of my vision remains 12 years later and it was due to catching it before it was too late.

If you are diabetic you should make sure to have a yearly exam as diabetic retinopathy usually will go unnoticed for many years and by the time you do notice it, it may already be too late..

I’m glad I took care of it when I did.

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