Healthy Vision, Healthy Life
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| Anne Kelly |
| 10/28/2009 |
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| Most of us go take a trip to the optometrist every year or so to see if our prescription has changed. And while eye doctors can give you a good idea of how well you see, they can also tell you vital information about your internal health. While optometrists are asking us to call out letters, and shining lights into our eyes, they`re also learning information about our bodies that our physicians may be unable to detect. Gordon Miller makes it to the optometrist about twice a year. Not only to make sure his vision is in check, but also because he has diabetes. "I`ve had it for 21 years," Miller says. "I seem to do quite well with my diabetes." However, Optometrist Terry Schmidt sees a different story. He sees bleeding on the back of Miller`s eyes, a key sign that he has been living with high blood sugar for an extended period. Schmidt says high blood sugar weakens blood vessel walls over time. "And the back of the eye, which is the retina, is full of blood vessels, so when we look into the retina, if the blood vessel walls have been weakened by diabetes they can leak," says Dr. Schmidt. Causing hemorrhaging, like with Gordon. And it isn`t just high blood sugar that can cause it. High blood pressure can too. Schmidt says in many cases, patients are aware of their high blood pressure or diabetes, but about four times a year, he has to drop the bomb on a patient. "They don`t even know they have it, so then they unfortunately find out by me first," says Dr. Schmidt. Other times patients who have diabetes don`t realize how their poor diet is affecting their body, and Schmidt is among the first to tell them it`s causing damage to blood vessels in the eye, and likely throughout the body. Dr. Schmidt says hemorrhaging in the back of the eye isn`t a huge problem at first, but it can become one. If bleeding continues and leaks over into the macular area of a person`s retina they can eventually lose eyesight. |
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