The eye disease of diabetic patients increases year by year, and the group is getting younger. Many diabetic patients suffer from visual impairment or even blindness due to lack of necessary understanding of diabetic eye diseases. Therefore, it is imperative to improve the patient's understanding of the disease and strengthen self-health care awareness.
Cataract is a disease that causes visual obstruction due to the turbidity of the crystalline lens of the eyeball. Once cataracts occur, it is like the camera lens turning into frosted glass, making imaging naturally unclear. Moreover, the turbid crystalline lens in front of the retina makes it impossible for doctors to examine the fundus and understand the condition of the fundus lesions, making targeted treatment impossible; on the other hand, retinopathy caused by diabetes will increase the difficulty of evaluating the efficacy after cataract surgery, making it impossible to determine whether the surgery was successful. The coexistence of these two conditions adds difficulty to the treatment.
It is urgent to raise awareness.
Diabetes is a common systemic metabolic disease. With the improvement of people's living standards and life expectancy, its incidence rate is also increasing year by year. The results of the fourth national survey on residents' nutrition and health status in 2002 showed: the incidence rate of diabetes was 2.6%, with an estimated number of patients exceeding 20 million, and nearly 20 million people had abnormal fasting blood glucose.
Ocular lesions are one of the most common serious complications of diabetes. Common ones include diabetic retinopathy, vitreous hemorrhage, diabetic cataracts, neovascular glaucoma, etc., among which diabetic retinopathy is the most serious. Once diabetic eye disease occurs, the patient's vision decreases, eventually leading to blindness. Studies have reported that 10% of diabetic patients develop fundus lesions 5-9 years after onset, and nearly 1/5 of type 2 diabetic patients already have severe retinopathy when diagnosed with diabetes. As the course of the disease progresses, the risk of developing fundus lesions also increases. Among those with 20 years of disease history, 50% develop fundus lesions.
Statistics show that the incidence of blindness caused by diabetic eye disease is 25 times higher than that of normal people. Therefore, it is urgent to improve the awareness of diabetic eye disease.
1. Recognize that diabetes can endanger the eyes
Most diabetic patients have a certain understanding of diabetes-related knowledge, but know little about diabetic eye diseases. Clinicians often focus on controlling the patient's blood sugar levels, and education is mostly limited to basic knowledge such as the cause of diabetes, classification, drug treatment, dietary therapy, exercise therapy, and blood glucose monitoring, as well as life-threatening complications such as heart, brain, and kidney. There is less concern for the occurrence, development, and harm of diabetic eye diseases, and few suggestions are made for patients to regularly visit ophthalmologists. A survey found that more than half of the patients lack education on the prevention and treatment of ocular complications, and even after their vision decreases, they are rarely advised to regularly visit ophthalmologists.
Little do they know that if diabetic patients do not control their blood sugar well, long-term damage to blood vessels and optic nerves will lead to ocular complications. Moreover, once ocular lesions occur in diabetic patients, they are often irreversible. In the later stages, diabetic retinopathy, vitreous hemorrhage, tractional retinal detachment, and neovascular glaucoma may occur, ultimately leading to blindness.
Due to the irreversibility of diabetic eye disease, preventing its occurrence is the most important step. Early prevention costs much less than late treatment, and the results are better.
2. Understand the treatment of diabetic eye disease
When diabetic retinopathy, cataracts, etc., develop to a certain extent, they can further cause multiple ocular complications. Once diabetic eye disease complications occur, even if blood sugar is controlled and general health improves, the pathological process in the eyes cannot be reversed, and must be combined with ocular treatment to stabilize the lesion. Some patients know that diabetes can cause ocular lesions and feel that their vision has decreased, but they do not rush to the hospital for examination and treatment, thinking that as long as blood sugar is controlled, vision will improve. Some patients even ignore Western medical diagnosis and testing methods and take traditional Chinese medicine for treatment. Although traditional Chinese medicine has the effect of improving microcirculation in the eye and helping absorb intraocular bleeding, once the intraocular lesions reach a certain level, it can only delay but not prevent the progression of the lesion.
3. Understand risk factors
Smoking, drinking, and hypertension can greatly increase the incidence of diabetic retinopathy. Therefore, diabetic patients should reasonably control their blood sugar, quit smoking and drinking, actively treat hypertension, hypoalbuminemia, and other risk factors, avoiding these factors from worsening diabetic retinopathy and macular edema.
4. Understand prognosis and prepare mentally
Long-term suffering from diabetes, if then informed of having an eye disease that can cause blindness, is a great mental blow to the patient, easily leading to anxiety and fear. If complicated by vitreous hemorrhage, an eye with normal vision can become light-sensitive within minutes. This sudden sharp change in vision will leave the patient at a loss, leading to extremely pessimistic emotions, which is not conducive to disease treatment. Therefore, patients should have sufficient psychological preparation for the prognosis of diabetic eye disease.
5. Emphasize ocular examinations
From the day of diagnosis, all diabetic patients should regularly undergo relevant examinations by professional ophthalmologists. This is the key to timely discovering early ocular lesions and reducing the occurrence of diabetic ocular complications. The examination interval depends on the presence and severity of fundus lesions. Type 1 diabetic patients should be examined once a year after 5 years of illness, and type 2 diabetic patients should be examined once a year from the onset of the disease. If exudation, edema, and bleeding indicative of retinopathy are found in the fundus, follow-up should be conducted every 2-3 months and treatment should be administered promptly. Pregnant women with diabetes should be examined every 3 months.
Improving patients' understanding of the disease and strengthening self-health care awareness is extremely important for improving the quality of life of diabetic patients and reducing economic burdens.
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