Protecting Your Eyes

Diabetes can damage the small blood vessels at the back of the eye. In the early stages, when it is most treatable, it causes no symptoms at all — your vision seems completely normal.

This is why the recommendation is a dilated eye examination at least once a year. Dilated is the important word. Drops are used to widen the pupil so the whole retina can be examined; a routine vision test for spectacles does not do this and will not find early damage.

By the time you notice blurring, floaters, dark patches or changes in your vision, the disease is usually well established. Those symptoms are a reason to be seen quickly, not to wait for your annual appointment.

The reassuring part is that early changes can often be treated, and treatment works considerably better before your vision has been affected.

Two other things help. Keeping your blood sugar and blood pressure in range slows the whole process down. And a temporary blurring of vision after a big improvement in blood sugar control is common and usually settles — worth mentioning to your doctor rather than panicking about.

If it has been more than a year since your last dilated exam, book one now — it sits alongside the rest of your yearly checks. This is the single check people most reliably let slide.