Eye Exams Designed for Patients with Diabetes

Eye care is an essential part of keeping on top of your health when you have diabetes. People with diabetes are at risk of eye damage as a result of long-term high blood sugar. An eye exam can detect this damage before you notice symptoms and reveal if your diabetes management isn’t working for you.

We recommend our patients with diabetes see us for an eye exam at least once a year, per the recommendations of the Canadian Association of Optometrists. We’ll provide you with a personalized schedule once we’ve seen you.

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What to Expect from Your Diabetic Eye Exam

Your comprehensive diabetic eye exam includes all of the important parts of our regular adult eye exams, like assessing your visual acuity, your refractive error, and how your eyes work together.

We’ll also use advanced diagnostic technology to take images that allow us to assess the health of the inner structures of your eye. We use Optomap imaging for a wide-angle view of your retina and optical coherence tomography for a cross-sectional view of your retina. We may dilate your eyes for these tests, and your eyes might be light-sensitive for a few hours afterward.

If we detect damage to the blood vessels in your retina, we can begin treatment before you even notice symptoms.

About Diabetic Eye Diseases & Treatments

A healthy lifestyle, regular eye exams, and careful blood sugar management can protect against vision loss related to diabetes. However, if we detect eye damage during your eye exam, effective treatments are available to manage diabetic eye disease.

Diabetic Retinopathy

Diabetic retinopathy is a potentially vision-threatening eye disease resulting from uncontrolled blood sugar over time. High blood sugar damages the delicate blood vessels in the retina, causing them to leak or bleed.

Early diabetic retinopathy doesn’t cause symptoms, but eventually you may notice vision changes, including occasional trouble seeing faraway objects or reading close-up. You may later notice floating spots in your vision.

Untreated, diabetic retinopathy can cause blindness. Early treatment simply involves getting your blood sugar under control and working with your doctor on managing your diabetes.

If diabetic retinopathy progresses, it may need to be treated with medicine injections, laser treatment, or eye surgery.

Diabetic Macular Edema

Diabetic macular edema is a complication of later stages of diabetic retinopathy. It’s caused by leaking fluids in the retina that lead to swelling of the macula.

The macula is responsible for your central vision, so symptoms of diabetic macular edema include blurred or wavy vision at the centre of your field of view. However, if only one eye is affected, you may not notice these symptoms.

Treatment begins with good management of your diabetes. If diabetic macular edema progresses, treatments like injections of medicine or eye surgery may be required.