How can our home visit opticians detect diabetes?

With Diabetes Week falling on the week of 14th-20th June 2021, we thought that it would be a good idea to highlight the importance of having your eyes tested regularly. During your home eye test, we carry out a comprehensive eye examination. We not only check the overall health of your eyes, we can also identify several severe health conditions such as diabetes. How can you tell if diabetes is affecting your eyes?

This is a common question asked to opticians. The main symptoms are blurred vision, floaters in your vision and the slow or rapid loss of vision. As these can be symptoms related to many eye conditions and other common conditions, it is advisable to have a sight test to identify any issues. Can an optician detect diabetic retinopathy?

Diabetic retinopathy is the medical term given to an eye condition brought on by diabetes. The screening for retinopathy is essential because it can cause blindness in people. “The retina is the light-sensitive tissue located at the rear of the eye and diabetic retinopathy can create changes within the blood vessels that feed the retina.

These blood vessels can swell up and leak fluids or abnormal blood vessels can grow on the surface of the retina, eventually causing vision loss.

Anyone with diabetes, whether that is type 1 or 2 is at risk of developing diabetic retinopathy. Up to 45% of diagnosed diabetics experience some stage of the condition.”

Source: davidpaulopticians.co.uk

At Opticall, your local opticians who do home visits, we carry out regular eye examinations. During your eye screening appointments, we may pick up on some suspicious changes in your vision and refer you to an ophthalmologist optometrist who can make a diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy.

At the referral, you will have a screening appointment that will include one or more of the following tests to ensure an accurate diagnosis is given:

Ophthalmoscopy

This test allows the ophthalmologist to see the back of the eye and locate where the retina and the optic nerve is. An ophthalmoscope is a magnifying tool used to examine the eye to detect abnormalities caused by diabetes.

• A slit-lamp exam
• In this examination, a microscope and light source creates a 3
• D view of the inner and outer eye. This is sometimes used with an ophthalmoscope to complete the exam.
• Optical coherence tomography

This process detects fluid in your retina and picks up signs of damage that could indicate diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma or macular degeneration. Dilating drops are put into the eyes just before the eye test, which widens the pupils so light beams can be focused on the back of the eye during this dilated eye exam.

These forms of diabetic eye screening are essential to detect symptoms of diabetes so that it can be diagnosed at an earlier stage, meaning the proper treatment and care can be put in place.