It never occurred to Chen, 23, that within three days, his eyesight had changed from being unable to see things clearly to suddenly becoming blind because he had diabetes. It turns out that in the past year, Xiao Chen has lost 40 kg. At first, she thought she was successful in losing weight, but unexpectedly it was a sign of diabetes. Due to the lack of timely diagnosis and treatment, Xiao Chen’s blood sugar was four times the upper limit of normal, leading to diabetic cataracts and blindness. Fortunately, she has undergone cataract surgery and her vision is still recovering. (Information source: Yangzhou Evening News)
Can diabetes harm eyes? Many people may think that this is an exaggeration when they hear it? The truth of the matter is that diabetes is not a joke!
What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a systemic metabolic disease characterized by hyperglycemia.
For diabetes, many people think it’s just high blood sugar, which is not wrong. However, diabetes is easy to cause chronic damage to the kidney, heart, nerves, blood vessels, eyes, etc. because of the long-term high blood sugar status, which is often ignored by many people who do not know the truth.
Cataract is one of the common ocular complications of diabetes. Statistics show that the risk of cataract in diabetes patients is about 2-4 times higher than that in normal people.
Why can diabetes patients cause cataracts?
Diabetes patients are prone to cataract, which may be related to the lack of insulin in the patient’s body or the reduction of the activity of galactokinase in the body. Because the aldose reductase receptor mediated intrinsic accumulation of polyols causes the increase of intraocular aqueous osmotic pressure, swelling of lens fibers, and then fracture or disintegration, leading to lens turbidity.
Diabetes cataract can be divided into true diabetes cataract and adult diabetes cataract
Adult diabetes cataract mostly occurs in middle-aged and elderly patients, whose symptoms and signs and age-related cataract develop rapidly, and the onset may be earlier than that of the same age group;
The other is true diabetes cataract, which mostly occurs in young adults. It usually occurs in both eyes and progresses rapidly. The lens may become turbid in a short time.
When cataracts develop to a certain extent, surgical treatment is required, and surgery is currently the only way to treat cataracts.
How to treat diabetes cataract?
The incidence of diabetes cataract is mainly related to the increase of blood sugar, so it is very important to actively control blood sugar and delay the progress of the disease. But if cataracts have already affected vision, it is recommended to perform phacoemulsification surgery on cataracts while controlling blood sugar levels.
Cataract surgery and phacoemulsification are minimally invasive procedures that typically take 10-20 minutes. Most patients only need to use surface anesthesia to complete the surgery without the need for injections. Moreover, the scope of the surgery only involves the eyes and has almost no impact on the patient’s body.
Cataract phacoemulsification surgery consists of six main steps:
Step 1: Make three small incisions at the edge of the cornea, one primary and two secondary. The main incision is about two to three millimeters long and serves as the primary site for the passage of the phacoemulsification rod and artificial lens, while the other two minor incisions, each about one millimeter long, allow for the passage of surgical instruments.
Step 2: Use tear forceps to tear open a front capsule opening with a diameter of about five millimeters, making it easier to remove the cataract cortex and nucleus.
Step 3: Perform “water separation” to separate the cortical tissue from the outer capsule.
Step 4: Use an phacoemulsification rod to shock dissolve and aspirate the cataract nucleus and cortical tissue.
Step 5: Polish the outer capsule to reduce the chance of postoperative inflammation and cloudy appearance of the outer capsule.
Step 6: Insert the artificial lens.
At Kunming Eye Hospital, phacoemulsification for cataracts is also a value-added surgery that can not only solve patients’ cataract problems, but also simultaneously correct issues such as presbyopia, myopia, hyperopia, or astigmatism. By undergoing cataract surgery, the cloudy crystalline lens can be replaced with a transparent artificial lens to reduce conditions such as presbyopia and myopia, and there is no need to wear presbyopia glasses after surgery.
How should diabetes cataract be prevented?
If you want to stay away from cataracts caused by diabetes, it is important to control blood sugar!
In addition to controlling blood sugar and preventing or delaying the occurrence of cataracts, patients with diabetes are recommended to regularly go to a regular eye hospital for examination. If problems are discovered, correct and effective treatment measures can be taken early.