Diabetes: Symptoms that May Lead to Eye Problems

In the present world, diabetes is a type of disease that is found among a lot of people. It is a chronic metabolic condition of the body, characterized by an increased amount of glucose or sugar-like components in the bloodstream. In fact, in the modern day, diabetes, also clinically known as diabetes mellitus, is a chronic disease, that is common not only in India but also in some of the major parts of the world. The rate of occurrence of diabetes has significantly increased, because of the increased levels of workload, peer pressure, and other unhealthy practices, such as living an undisciplined and irregular lifestyle, lacking enough nutritional and health-beneficial components in the regular diet, having enough junk or fast foods that are high in calorie content, along with some other reasons. Diabetes or diabetes mellitus is such a condition of the body when there are high amounts of glucose in the blood because of an excess of sugar-like components. The body produces two important types of hormones, they are-insulin, and glucagon. Insulin plays a very crucial role in using up a major portion of the glucose present in the blood by the body cells to derive enough amount of energy that will be necessary for carrying out all the important physiological functions of the body. Diabetes is such a chronic condition of the body that can lead to the occurrence of a number of other physical and health problems, the most significant one being eye problems. In fact, many medical professionals and health care experts suggest that there are chronic conditions such as diabetes mellitus can lead to the occurrences like eye damage along with several cases of eye damage and problems such as an increase in the risks of developing cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma, and many more. If you are a person who is suffering from any type of diabetes, then this is the most important article for you. This article will effectively help you to get a vivid idea and in-depth knowledge about what is all about diabetes mellitus, how it can affect your eyes, what kind of eye damage risks might increase because of diabetes, and most importantly, how will you treat those conditions. Read the entire article and be aware of your diabetes and the possible damage it can cause to your eyes.

If you think that you have diabetes mellitus, then there are high possibility of your eyes getting affected because of increased levels of sugar in your bloodstream. So, in the case of diabetes, get the disease treated by your health care experts as soon as the disease gets detected. This is quite essential, because if you neglect or ignore diabetes mellitus, then there are high chances that the disease might result in certain fatal health conditions. Apart from that, you can also develop some lethal damages in your eyes when increased levels of blood glucose are kept untreated and undiagnosed for a longer period.

Now that you know how diabetes mellitus can cause damage to your eyes, you must also note that there are certain eye conditions that specifically occur because of high levels of blood sugar or diabetes mellitus. These eye conditions that develop because of diabetes mellitus might differ from one person to the other. For some people, eye problems because of high blood sugar levels are quite minor, due to which, just lowering the blood sugar levels can effectively help to solve the eye-related problems, but there are even some people, for whom the conditions might not be so mild, and they might require proper medications to treat diabetes and certain types of eyedrops that will help them to treat the eye conditions effectively. There are some types of eye conditions that you are likely to suffer from if you have diabetes mellitus. Some such conditions may be listed here as follows:

1. Blurred vision:

The blurring of vision is often considered one of the most common conditions of eye damage because of increased or low levels of glucose in your bloodstream or due to chronic conditions such as diabetes mellitus. When a person’s vision gets blurred, then it is quite difficult for that person to see things or even perform basic and regular chores. The most common reason behind developing blurred vision while having diabetes might be the leaking of fluid into the lens of your eyes. Once the liquid leaks into it, the lens swells up and the shape of the lens gets changed. This makes it quite difficult for the person to focus on any object and as a result, the vision gets blurred. To rectify blurred vision, it is important for you to treat your diabetic conditions and bring the glucose levels in your blood to an optimum.

2. Cataract:

A cataract is a cloudy layer that your eyes develop if you are suffering from diabetes. Though cataracts can develop due to a variety of reasons, the most significant one being old age, there are still risks of having cataracts if you already have diabetes. In fact, if you already have issues like chronic diabetes then you are at increased risk of developing cataracts in your eyes at a much early age than the normal age of developing cataracts. But how will know that you are having cataracts? Here are some of the most common symptoms of cataracts:

• Blurred vision
• Double visions, mostly in one eye
• Increased light sensitivity
• Visions of halos surrounding light
• It feels like you have a cloudy covering over your eyes
• Having a vision of faded colors

3. Diabetic retinopathy:

Diabetic retinopathy, as the name suggests, is a condition of the eyes that occurs when a person develops problems in a portion of the eye known as the retina because of having chronic diabetes. There are mostly 4 stages of this disease. You can take a closer look at those 4 stages:

• Stage 1: this is the primary stage when the patient develops a mild non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy

• Stage 2: in the second stage, the condition becomes moderate

• Stage 3: the third stage results in a severe condition of non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy

• Stage 4: proliferative diabetic retinopathy and this condition are quite difficult to cure completely.

When a person develops conditions like diabetic retinopathy, then there are chances that the person might also develop problems such as a blurred vision of fluid in the eyes. Apart from that, there are also some other common symptoms of this disease. Some of them can be listed here as follows:

• Change of colors in vision
• Extreme cases such as loss of vision
• Problems of seeing things at night
• Conditions like eye floaters
• Cases of distortions in vision and related vision problems

4. Hyperglycemia:

Hyperglycemia is such a condition of the eyes when there is an excess of glucose or sugar-like components in the bloodstream. This occurs if you already have diabetes mellitus and there is a malfunction of the insulin hormone in your body. Some people might have a problem identifying and understanding whether they are suffering from hyperglycemia or not. There are certain signs and symptoms that will help you to understand whether you are suffering from hyperglycemia or not. Some of them are listed here as follows:

• Excessive tiredness and weakness with a feeling of exhaustion
• Mild to excessive headache
• Increase in thirst and urination

Hyperglycemia is truly a sever condition of the eyes and to avoid severe damage in your eyes and the optic nerves, it is important for you to get the disease treated. You should not only try to treat your eyes but also take steps to lower down the blood glucose levels in your body so that the diabetic conditions might be reversed.

5. Glaucoma:

Glaucoma is another condition of the eyes that occurs because of health abnormalities, such as diabetes mellitus. It has been found in recent studies and experiments that, glaucoma is a severe condition of the eyes that occurs because of damage in the optic nerve when you have increased levels of glucose in your bloodstream. Some of the major symptoms of glaucoma can be listed below:

• pain in the eyes
• vision of halos around lights
• reddening of the eyes
• extreme cases such as loss of peripheral or tunnel vision
• feelings of nausea that may or may not is accompanied by vomiting