Diabetes Awareness Month

As many of you are aware, most men are actually growing a mustache for Movember to raise funds for Prostate Cancer.  Did you know it’s also Diabetes month?

The other day I had a healthy 35 year old male patient that came in for an eye exam because his wife made him.  He sees 20/20 vision and only complains about intermittent blur after dinner.  After his dilated eye exam, this is what we saw in the back of his eye.

He was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy and was unaware that he had diabetes.  He was sent to his family doctor for a diabetic workup.  He was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes and his diabetes is under control now with medications.

Prevention: Stable blood sugars significantly reduces the risk of developing diabetic retinopathy

Symptoms: In early stages, there are no symptoms, so regular eye exams are the best way to detect retinal changes.  By the time there is blurred vision, serious irreversible damage may have occured

Treatment: If there are a lot of swelling and bleeding, a referral will be sent to the retinal specialist where photocoagulation or injections are needed to stop the bleeding.

Diabetic retinopathy is the one of the most common cause of blindness.  Regular eye exams are a crucial part of health care for people with diabetes.  It is also important that adults get regular eye exam.  If you haven’t had one for the past 2 years, it might be time to consider to get your eyes checked.  20/20 vision does not mean healthy eyes!!!!!

Dr. Sherman Tung OD FAAO drtung@avenueeyecare.com

My vision is 20/20! Why do I need routine eye exams?

A routine eye exam can be compared to going in for your annual physical with your family doctor. We all know we should be doing it, but it’s hard to make the time for it when nothing is bothering us.  The keypoint is that most people don’t realize a lot of diseases have NO symptoms,especially at the earlier stages when detecting and treating gives the patient the best prognosis.  According to Canadian National Institution for the Blind, every 12 minutes, someone in Canada begins to lose their eyesight. But did you know that 75 per cent of vision loss can be prevented?  If you ask any optometrist, all of us will have lists of cases where a disease was diagnosed even though patients thought everything was fine.

A recent case that comes to mind… a middle-aged woman camein for a routine exam with no specific problems, and she remembered she was told she had 20/20 vision several years ago. She started a new job with benefits and decided to get her eyes checked.  She told me her health was good, although she hadn’t seen her family doctor in a couple of years.  When I dilated her eyes and looked at her retina, she had signs of early diabetic retinopathy (small hemorrhages in the retina).  She was then referred to her family doctor where it was confirmed she had diabetes.  Another common eye disease with no symptoms in early stages is glaucoma.  Check out this clip for Global TV about a photographer who didn’t realize he had glaucoma until it was too late:

http://www.globaltvbc.com/video/index.html?releasePID=zq1dhbEqvmxdwL039e_gVYmc1OJq7uxw

The list goes on with different problems that can be caught with routine check-ups, so please make an appointment to see your family doctor, dentist, and eye doctor soon!

Dr. Jessica Chang OD  drchang@avenueeyecare.com