Diabetes can cause many types of complications, including diabetic eye disease. Diabetes can cause two types of retinopathy – proliferative and non-proliferative retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy is one of the major blinding eye diseases. Diabetic retinopathy can occur with or without insulin therapy. Diabetes damages the retina mainly due to increased blood glucose, which thickens the walls of small blood vessels and increases permeability, making them more susceptible to deformation and leakage. The severity of diabetic retinopathy and the degree of vision loss are related to the control of blood glucose levels and the length of time with diabetes. The duration of the disease is particularly important, as diabetic retinopathy usually develops after at least 10 years of diabetes. Diabetic retinopathy is one of the serious complications of diabetes, and it is an important blinding eye disease. With the increasing number of patients with diabetes, it has become imperative to strengthen the prevention of diabetic eye disease. Clinically, the disease is divided into two main stages of development, namely non-proliferative and proliferative lesions, depending on whether neovascularization is present in the retina. In the non-proliferative phase, the patient’s retina develops microangiomas, hemorrhagic spots, hard exudates, and cotton wool spots. Due to the disruption of the blood-retinal barrier, plasma components leak into the retinal tissue, leading to retinal edema, and when the edema occurs in the macula, it causes central vision loss. The most important fundus changes in proliferative diabetic retinopathy are neovascularization and corresponding complications, mainly manifested by the proliferating neovascularization growing along the retinal surface or entering the vitreous to form proliferative membranes. When the neovascularization ruptures, it can lead to retinal and vitreous hemorrhage, and the contraction of the proliferative membrane can also cause retinal detachment by traction. If not given timely treatment, it eventually causes neovascular glaucoma, which is an extremely serious ocular complication of diabetes mellitus. In addition to causing loss of vision, it also causes persistent eye pain, headache, nausea, vomiting, etc., which brings great pain to patients. If diabetic retinopathy has progressed to a certain level, with macular edema, retinal neovascularization or large areas of retinal ischemia, prompt laser treatment should be performed to stop further deterioration of the disease as much as possible, regardless of whether the patient’s vision has been affected. The purpose of performing retinal laser photocoagulation is to destroy the retinal tissue in the pathological state, scarring it so that the retinal oxygen consumption is reduced and the surviving normal retinal tissue is relieved of hypoxia. If the diabetic patient’s retinopathy has reached an advanced stage, with vitreous blood accumulation and prolonged non-absorption of the blood accumulation (usually observed for 3 months), vitreous proliferation, and retinal detachment by traction, then vitrectomy must be performed to preserve the maximum amount of residual vision. As there are no obvious symptoms in the early stage of diabetic retinopathy, patients often do not pay attention to it, and once vision loss to the hospital, most of them are already in the middle and late stages of the disease, the treatment effect is already very poor, or even incurable condition. Therefore, diabetic patients should do the following: 1. strictly control blood sugar to stop or delay the development of retinopathy and reduce visual impairment; 2. always be vigilant and do regular fundus examination to achieve early detection and early treatment to avoid late complications; 3. in patients with severe diabetic retinopathy, surgical treatment can effectively prevent further deterioration of vision, although it cannot cure the disease. Diabetic retinopathy precautions In our daily life, we often hear or see certain diabetic patients with reduced eye vision or even sudden vision loss, and only after going to the hospital for examination do we know that they have diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy is the most common ocular complication of diabetes. It is a leaky, occlusive and proliferative microangiopathy that occurs in the retinal tissue of the eye. The development of this disease is closely related to the type and duration of diabetes, which occurs in about 50% of patients with type I diabetes for more than 7 years and 90% of those with type I diabetes for 17-25 years. The incidence is even higher when combined with hypertension and hyperlipidemia.