The key to preventing blindness in diabetics: early detection and early treatment

  In recent years, with the increasing incidence of diabetes, the incidence of diabetes-induced eye diseases is also increasing day by day. In the United States, diabetic retinopathy accounts for 25% of causes of blindness in adults over the age of 40, and the World Health Organization has announced that after age-related retinal degeneration, diabetic retinopathy has become the second leading cause of visual impairment and blindness worldwide.  The incidence of diabetic fundopathy increases with the duration of the disease, and its severity increases with the duration of the disease. Patients with diabetes often have symptoms that are not very typical, and when they are diagnosed with diabetes, they have actually had the disease for much longer. After diabetes is discovered, more patients focus on changes in blood sugar and systemic conditions, and the vast majority do not understand the damage diabetes does to the eyes, and feel that vision loss occurs because they are old or caused by cataracts, and do not go to the ophthalmology clinic until they have severe vision loss or even blindness, thus missing the best time for treatment and delaying the disease.  Early diabetic retinopathy is characterized by a gradual loss of vision, but it is often not serious, and the fundus shows a small amount of hemorrhage or exudation. At this point of detection, laser treatment is usually the main treatment, supplemented by drug treatment.  For more than 30 years now, fundus laser photocoagulation has been recognized as the most effective means of treating early diabetic retinopathy. By photocoagulating the retinal lesion site, the lesion can be eliminated without worsening the disease and stabilizing the vision. However, unfortunately, there are so many patients who do not understand laser treatment, blindly exist in fear, or even take an avoidance attitude, or hope on some unscientific and irresponsible false advertising drugs, making the lesions continue to develop into advanced stages.  For advanced patients with combined vitreous hemorrhage, proliferation, or even retinal detachment, simple retinal photocoagulation therapy can no longer solve the problem and requires vitrectomy plus intraocular laser photocoagulation, which can also save the vision of some patients, but at a high cost and with great pain, and the effect is not as good as that of patients with early detection.  Therefore, early detection and treatment is the key to treating diabetic eye disease. For diabetic patients, we make the following recommendations: a. The most fundamental treatment for diabetic patients to prevent ophthalmoplegia is to control blood sugar continuously. Please strictly control blood sugar under the guidance of an internist.  After being diagnosed with diabetes, even if your vision is normal, you should go to the ophthalmology department of a regular hospital for a fundus examination to find out if diabetic retinopathy has occurred.  If everything is normal, a detailed examination of the fundus should be performed every six months or so. If the early symptoms of the disease have appeared, it should be checked once every one to two months, and if necessary, receive laser or drug treatment.