Diabetic eye disease Diabetes can cause changes in the refractive power and transparency of the lens, which can reach a refractive change of 3∽4 degrees. Therefore, we would like to remind you that if the refractive state has been stable when you were young and suddenly in a short period of time you have significant myopia or hyperopia, beware if you have diabetes. The nerves of our eyes mainly manage visual afferents and eye movements. In our clinical work, we often encounter such patients, whose eyes were fine when they went to bed last night, but felt blurred shortly after waking up this morning. It turns out that the problem is caused by diabetes again. Diabetes usually causes microvascular changes that reduce nerve nutrition and lead to diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Diabetes can cause severe fundus hemorrhage, or diabetic retinopathy, which is one of the serious complications of diabetes and one of the leading causes of blindness in working-age adults. In adolescents 86% of blindness is due to diabetic retinopathy; in adults, 1/3 of legal blindness is due to diabetic retinopathy. Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disease characterized by elevated blood glucose, with a variety of clinical manifestations and different causes. The reason is simple: diabetes is a demon that lurks in our eyes. It is like the White Bone Demon of the Journey to the West, which can appear in a thousand different forms, but has only one purpose: to destroy our eyesight and damage our eyes. Physician’s comment About 25% of diabetic patients have diabetic retinopathy, and the longer the course of the disease, the higher the incidence. This is the most ruthless trick of diabetes, which can be very insidious at the beginning, often paralyzing the patient’s mind, and the patient’s vision loss is slow because there is no obvious pain. When there is a significant loss of vision, it is often at an advanced stage and either becomes retinal detachment or neovascular glaucoma. As the saying goes, “the meat of the monk is almost cooked” – it’s too late! High blood sugar can affect the metabolism of the lens, which is manifested as refractive error in the early stage, and over time, the crystal metabolism is abnormal, the protein of the lens is degenerated, the crystal fibers are swollen, and the lens turns from transparent to cloudy, forming cataract. On the other hand, if cataract surgery is not done in time, the progress of retinal and optic nerve damage cannot be monitored. Diabetic microangiopathy leads to extensive blockage of retinal blood vessels and retinal ischemia and hypoxia. If timely treatment of diabetic retinopathy is not performed at the right time, the ischemia and hypoxia of the retina worsens, inducing the growth of neovascularization of non-normal structures, which cover the retina and iris and block the atrial angle, causing neovascular glaucoma. By this time, the patient not only cannot see, but also experiences uncontrollable eye distention, headache, nausea, and vomiting, which is very late for treatment. Another common condition is inflammation of the iris ciliary body and diabetic autonomic neuropathy causing abnormal pupil size, in which patients have varying degrees of vision loss. The corneal tissue is rich in nerves but lacks blood vessels, suggesting that healthy innervation is the main driver of normal corneal maintenance. Diabetic peripheral neuropathy, which often reduces corneal perception, is essentially an injury to the trigeminal nerve endings in the cornea. When a patient has poor corneal perception, the cornea is unable to perceive the injury when it occurs, and the nerve nutrition of the cornea cannot keep up, so the corneal injury is not easily repaired. Diabetic patients should have strict blood sugar control because high blood sugar is recognized as a major risk factor for retinopathy.