Help with diabetic retinopathy

Status
Not open for further replies.
J

John198888

Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hello,

Ive just recently found out that I have high blood sugar after being unwell and fatigued, I have an appointment with the diabetes nurse on Tuesday to find out more. One of the symptoms I have been suffering with is slight blurred vision, mainly small text up close, nothing too crazy, I can still see and using a magnifying glass helps with really small text.

I have just read an article on diabetic retinopathy, I thought it could have been fixed with glasses, but have discovered that it could lead to sight loss. I have changed my diet drastically since finding out about the high blood sugar about a week and a half ago but reading about the diabetic retinopathy has made me very upset and cannot stop crying, I am only 33 yo and have no one to talk to ☹.

If any one can help with advice or just calm me down it would be greatly appreciated, I feel so alone ☹

John
 
John198888 said:
If any one can help with advice or just calm me down it would be greatly appreciated, I feel so alone
Click to expand...
High blood glucose can cause blurred vision, and it should resolve when you blood sugar is better controlled. Good control of blood glucose also helps with reducing the chances of retinopathy should you end up having signs of that.

If you're registered as diabetic you should be offered annual (or sometimes more or less frequent) screenings for retinopathy so it can be caught early (and then there are treatments to help reduce the vision loss).

If I were you I'd assume your blurred vision is just high blood glucose and worry about controlling that. (Lots of newly diagnosed people with diabetes have the same, and are advised not to get new glasses for a while until their vision has settled down.)
 
Thankyou for the info, hopefully I ll find out more on Tuesday. Do you know if watching TV affects it negatively? I can seem to find much I fo on that.
 
John198888 said:
Do you know if watching TV affects it negatively?
Click to expand...
I doubt it very much. The blurring due to high blood glucose is just a temporary thing (so once you've started treating the diabetes don't waste money on getting new glasses for a few weeks) and retinopathy is to do with blood vessels in the retina and is rather a gradual process. I don't think watching TV will make any difference to either.
 
I have background retinopathy and as a complication, a bit of diabetic macular oedema.

Both sound a lot scarier than they actually are, but anyway you probably don't have either, and I've never heard of TV watching having anything to do with them.

The important things to control are blood glucose, blood pressure and non-HDL cholesterol.
 
Hi and welcome.

Please don't worry. I believe you have frightened yourself needlessly. The blurry vision is extremely common and almost certainly not diabetic retinopathy. The problem with blurry vision and struggling to read small print is likely due to the lenses in your eyes having changed shape and therefore their focal length due to the change in sugar concentration in your body. This is totally different to retinopathy and just a temporary thing, which will resolve as your BG levels drop and the environment in the eye returns to it's normal balance of electrolytes and the lens of the eyes will return to their normal shape and focal length. Many of us invested in some ready reader glasses from the pound shop to tide us over for a few weeks/months.
Retinopathy is where the fine blood vessels which supply the retina at the back of the eye with blood, are damaged by slight bleeding. As far as I am aware this does not cause blurry vision. This can be caused by persistent high BG levels and high blood pressure... the 2 often go together. These tiny blood vessels are also susceptible to dramatic changes in blood glucose levels and it is therefore wise to adjust your diet slowly and gently rather than drastically, so that there is less chance of a bleed as BG levels reduce. Slow and steady carb reduction should reduce any slight risk of this damage occuring. Basically, go steady with any dietary changes. You may need to change your diet quite a lot overall but doing it steadily in stages is kinder to your body and your eyes and will result in less risk.

Just to reiterate the blurry vision is extremely common in newly diagnosed diabetics and I myself had problems with it. I have had several retinal screenings and my retina are fine.... no retinopathy... and my blurry vision has largely resolved although for me there has been some slight deterioration requiring reading glasses for correction but this may be age (58) related and is certainly not diabetic retinopathy and I am absolutely not going blind. Most people have full restoration of their reading vision when BG levels are stabilized in the normal range.
 
Thankyou all for the replies, it means a lot when I lack information on the subject, I haven’t been properly diagnosed yet (The doctors receptionist told me I had high blood sugar and nothing else) and have no one to talk to about it.

I have a few more questions if you don’t mind answering?

@Bruce Stephens & Eddy Edson How long have you had it for and has it led to any kind of serious or full loss of vision for either of you? If not, what kind of treatments have you had? I know I probably just worked myself up reading about it but just had visions of me losing my sight in the next year, I read about injections in the eye and that scared the hell out of me too (not a big fan of needles especially in the eye).

@rebrascora Yes I do tend to read about things online and then get myself worked up about it, ever since looking up the symptoms of diabetes I have been breaking down worrying about it, all you good peoples advice has helped and calmed me down a bit. With regards to my diet, I have kind of hammered it in a negative way for the past 7 ish years, lots of bad takeaways, overeating, fizzy pop (mainly sugar free), and a lot of bread. I have had some issues with mental health, comfort eating, and cannabis addiction. The last takeaway I had was about a week and a half ago, I have reduced my overall meal size by maybe 30%, the amount of bread I eat and changed to wholemeal. I used to drink around 3-10+ 330ML cans of pop a day, I have started drinking a lot more water throughout the day and maybe one 550ml bottle of sugar free pop (mainly a few gulps at meals times). I hope this isn’t too much of a drastic change. I think my diet was so bad, I had to cut the really bad stuff out (white bread, high sugar takeaways and full sugar Lucozade’s). I also have never really read the nutritional values on food before, I was shocked by how much sugar is in everything, especially a cottage pie! I also have started exercising more, mainly walking and cycling, Hopefully the changes in my diet and exercise will help lower the blood sugar and reduce the blurred vision, like I said it is only up-close small text and far distance maybe car number plates for example. Your advice has definitely calmed me down, I do have a habit of working myself up, I’m only 33 and thought I was going to go blind and die within the next year!

Another quick question, does anyone have experience with vaping? I quit smoking about 5 years ago and have been using the vape ever since. I have read varied opinions online about the effects of vaping, diabetes, if they contain sugar and if they affect blood sugar levels. If no one has experience, its fine, if they do affect blood sugar levels, I will need to slow down or maybe even stop permanently.

I’m sorry to ramble on so much and keep asking more questions, not just on diabetic retinopathy but diabetes in general. I just think I need as much information on the subject as possible to help me deal with it.

Thank you all again 🙂

John
 
John198888 said:
@Bruce Stephens & Eddy Edson How long have you had it for and has it led to any kind of serious or full loss of vision for either of you?
Click to expand...
I've had diabetes for slightly over 40 years, and I suspect background retinopathy for most of that. It's not made any difference to my vision and I've had no treatment for it.

(It's worth pointing out that at the stage it can be detected now, it can reverse. Once upon a time it was thought that everyone who had diabetes was assumed to get progressively worse retinopathy, perhaps leading to sight impairment but perhaps not. That's no longer the case: someone might have background retinopathy one year but by the next year it's gone. Mine has got worse and better.)
 
Bruce Stephens said:
I've had diabetes for slightly over 40 years, and I suspect background retinopathy for most of that. It's not made any difference to my vision and I've had no treatment for it.

(It's worth pointing out that at the stage it can be detected now, it can reverse. Once upon a time it was thought that everyone who had diabetes was assumed to get progressively worse retinopathy, perhaps leading to sight impairment but perhaps not. That's no longer the case: someone might have background retinopathy one year but by the next year it's gone. Mine has got worse and better.)
Click to expand...
Thank you Bruce, this Info has made me feel a lot better!
 
John198888 said:
Thank you Bruce, this Info has made me feel a lot better!
Click to expand...
I was diagnosed with T2D 4.5 years ago after my optometrist found background retinopathy when I was getting new glasses. At that stage my diabetes was pretty much out of control - hadn't been to a doctor in decades - so I'd probably had the retinopathy for a while.

I quickly got things under control but I was left with a "legacy" of moderate retinopathy in my left eye, including a bunch of microaneurysms near the centre of the retina, the macular.

Microaneurysms can leak gunk into the retina causing it to swell, at any stage of retinopathy. If this happens in the macular part it's called "diabetic macular oedema" and it can be a major problem for vision if not treated, these days usually with eyeball injections.

This happened to me this year - just bad luck really. I'm now in the middle of a course of Eylea eyeball injections. That sounds far worse than it actually is, which is a couple of minutes in the chair, anesthetic in the eye, a little bit of pressure, and that's it, apart from the eye feeling a little scratchy for a day or so. Doesn't hurt & it doesn't stop you from doing anything.

Eylea is a brilliant med - works really well.

None of this has involved any noticeable changes to my vision under normal circumstances. The standard little test is the Amsler Grid - just a sheet with squares like graph paper; easy to find on the web. Close one eye and if the lines are wavy or distorted with the other, you likely have macular oedema.

For me it started out a little bit distorted & it has gotten prigressively better with the injections. Using both eyes, the good eye automatically compensates and there's no distortion.

Anyway, that's a little snapshot of how things can go if you let the diabetes run out of control for a while, and then get unlucky. It's very unlikely to happen to you, but if it does, treatments these days are brilliant.
 
Ahh this started a bit bad but I’m glad you have got it under control and wish you good health. Hopefully I have caught whatever it is early and can fix it lowering the blood sugar, Ive only noticed it a couple of months ago, thinking it was because I was smoking every day and that was the cause, it has been on and off since then, some good days, some bad. If Microaneurysms does occur, I will have to deal with the injections, it doesn’t sound bad the way you described it, I will probably worry more in the weeks leading up to the appointment! How often do you have your injections? I’m so glad that you say it does not affect your vision, silly me thinking I was thinking I was going blind! I have tried the Amsler Grid online on my monitor, nothing seems distorted or wavey, but I think it would be best for the optician’s appointment (never had one since I was a young child).

Thank you, Eddy, for answering my question and telling me your experience. Hopefully I have caught it earlier enough not to be too out of control, the symptoms have been slow and progressed over the past 6 months if I estimate. I will find out more on Tuesday.

John
 
Bruce Stephens said:
As several of us have said, it's probably just high blood glucose so will resolve as you start lowering that.
Click to expand...
Yes, I have changed my diet in the past 2 weeks, I will continue that and the exercise. It’s crazy as most things have sugar in and I'm not sure on how much I can have, if any at all! How is everyone’s diet, do you eat nice things occasionally or not at all? I’m still very new to diabetes.
 
I would think the blurriness is from your high blood glucose rather than retinopathy and there is no need to worry at this stage and to put your mind at rest nag your GP for the referral for retinopathy screening.
You seem to have made a good attempt at tackling some dietary issues. But a planned reduction in ALL carbohydrates not just sugars is a good way to start.
Many find a low carbohydrate regime successful in reducing blood glucose and posing weight if you need to. This link may help you with some suggestions for adopting that approach. https://lowcarbfreshwell.co.uk/
Low carb is suggested as being less than 130g per day TOTAL carbs.
Keeping a food diary of everything you eat and drink with an estimate of the carbs then you can see how far you are from that. The book or app Carbs and Cals is a useful resource for giving carb value of different portions of a whole range of foods. Also investing in some digital scales so you can better estimate your portions, you may have some surprises.
 
Thankyou for your reply Leadinglights

Yes, hopefully it will be down to the high blood glucose. When I had my blood taken last Tuesday, I had still been eating and drinking very poorly (especially the Lucozade). Since then, I have my good changes to my diet and exercise, I don’t really know how long it will take to make a difference, a week isn’t probably enough. I have just calculated the total carbs for today as 139.9g but today I messed up a bit having white mashed potato for tea, the past couple of nights Ive tried sweet potato chips and sometimes I have a salad for dinner instead of 2 slices of wholemeal bread. The carbs are something I’m defiantly keeping my eye on too, I don’t think it will be an issue keeping it below 130g. It’s just when you hear blood sugar, you immediately think cut the sugar! I will have a look at the link and on the app store, see if I can find anything useful. I have made a list of things I eat that concern me and was going to ask the doctor about them, do you know what the limit is for the suggested low sugar diet? Its crazy that its in most things that aren’t even sweet! Yes portion size is something I have started to look at like peanut butter, brown sauce, philly cheese for some examples, just to not go overboard with it, investing in some scales would defiantly be a good idea for things like that.
 
John198888 said:
Thankyou for your reply Leadinglights

Yes, hopefully it will be down to the high blood glucose. When I had my blood taken last Tuesday, I had still been eating and drinking very poorly (especially the Lucozade). Since then, I have my good changes to my diet and exercise, I don’t really know how long it will take to make a difference, a week isn’t probably enough. I have just calculated the total carbs for today as 139.9g but today I messed up a bit having white mashed potato for tea, the past couple of nights Ive tried sweet potato chips and sometimes I have a salad for dinner instead of 2 slices of wholemeal bread. The carbs are something I’m defiantly keeping my eye on too, I don’t think it will be an issue keeping it below 130g. It’s just when you hear blood sugar, you immediately think cut the sugar! I will have a look at the link and on the app store, see if I can find anything useful. I have made a list of things I eat that concern me and was going to ask the doctor about them, do you know what the limit is for the suggested low sugar diet? Its crazy that its in most things that aren’t even sweet! Yes portion size is something I have started to look at like peanut butter, brown sauce, philly cheese for some examples, just to not go overboard with it, investing in some scales would defiantly be a good idea for things like that.
Click to expand...
Healthy fats and protein are not a problem it is ALL carbohydrates as they convert to glucose, it does not matter if they are brown or white versions of things like rice, pasta, bread there is still as much carb, it just may be coverted a bit more slowly. Sweet potatoes have similar carbs to normal potatoes but butternut squash is much lower so make a good substitute.
No added sugar peanut butter, philly, cheese, dairy, eggs, meat, fish, vegetables, salads and fruit like berries are all good.
You are not far away with your carb so some tweeks should reduce it a good bit, better to cut down slowly as that is better for your eyes and nerves.
Some people agonise about a dollop of sauce on their bacon sandwich whereas it is the bread that is the problem not the sauce.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'the suggested limit for a low sugar diet'
Things can be low sugar but still high total carbohydrate. I use my example of the cereal Puffed Wheat which if you look at the packet says 0.6g sugar per 100g but is a whopping 69.6g total carbohydrate per 100g so if you look at the sugar you would be midled into thinking it was a good choice.
The moral is always look at the TOTAL carbohydrate as really the as 'sugar' is irrelevant.
 
Sorry to hear you’ve had a bit of blurry vision @John198888

It can be scary when you perceive changes like that, and then your search engine results are full of doom and gloom :(

Try not to panic! As others have been saying, in the vast majority of cases early changes to the retina don't affect your vision, and can be successfully treated.

By contrast, high blood glucose levels can change the consistency of fluids in your eyes, and change their focal length.

Hopefully you’ll get some reassurance when you speak to your nurse.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top