Whether type I or type II diabetes, it takes some time to reach the point where retinopathy occurs. Many patients already have more severe diabetic retinopathy on eye examination when they are just diagnosed with diabetes, indicating that his diabetes has existed for a longer period of time and was just not detected. Therefore, it is recommended that we should pay attention to plain medical checkups to detect diabetes early and control it effectively. The reason why early diagnosis and treatment of diabetes is emphasized is that if diabetic retinopathy is detected early and treated early, it is possible to preserve useful vision and our quality of life during our lifetime. So, how much diabetic retinopathy affects our visual function, many patients are still unclear about this point, clinically we often see some patients once they hear that they have diabetic retinopathy, although it is very light, but the burden of thought is very heavy, eat poorly, sleep poorly, which is not conducive to the control of diabetes; while some other patients feel that their vision is still okay, the early diabetic retinopathy is not paid attention to, blood sugar is still The diabetic retinopathy is still not well controlled, and they do not have regular fundus examinations until the lesion progresses and causes serious damage to the visual function, and then they spend a lot of money on surgery, at which time the visual function is already severely impaired, and even if the surgery is successful, the improvement of visual acuity is very limited. In fact, the impact of diabetic retinopathy on visual function depends on the severity of the lesion. According to the staging criteria proposed by our fundus group in 1984, the severity of diabetic retinopathy is divided into two types, simple and proliferative, with six stages: simple type of lesions are located in the retina, which will not cause serious lesions of retinal detachment and will not lead to blindness, including three stages, where the retinopathy manifests as microangioma, retinal hemorrhage and retinal exudation; proliferative type of lesions have entered from the retina into the Vitreous, which can cause retinal detachment and can lead to blindness, and also neovascular glaucoma, which makes the patient blind along with significant eye pain, or even unable to retain the eye due to eye pain, also includes three stages, which manifest as retinal neovascularization, vitreous hemorrhage, fibrovascular proliferation, and detachment of the retina by traction. In short, whenever there are neovascularization in the retina or hemorrhage in the vitreous, it indicates the proliferative stage. Therefore, we first hope that diabetic retinopathy will not occur, and if it does, we hope that it will be controlled in the simple stage and not in the proliferative stage, which requires patients to control the three highs (hyperglycemia, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia) on the one hand, and regular eye examinations on the other hand, so that the retinal manifestations that may enter the proliferative stage can be detected in a timely manner, and thus laser treatment can be given in a timely manner, so that it is possible to reduce or avoid the occurrence of serious lesions and preserve the vision. Therefore, when the lesion is simple, the patient’s vision is generally good (if macular edema and optic neuropathy do not occur), so it is only necessary to regularly check the fundus to observe the progress of the lesion, and at the same time, control the “three highs” in internal medicine, adjust the diet, pay attention to exercise, relax, in order to slow down or control the progress of the lesion; once the lesion enters the proliferative stage, it is necessary to promptly perform retinal laser treatment. Once the lesion enters the proliferative stage, retinal laser photocoagulation therapy should be performed in time to reduce bleeding and proliferative lesions. If vitreous hemorrhage or retinal detachment has occurred, vitrectomy is required. Here we emphasize that in addition to medical treatment, regular ophthalmologic examination is also essential for the treatment of diabetic retinopathy.