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diabetic retinopathy treatment, diabetic ophthalmology, diabetic retinopathy symptoms, diabetic eye treatment, diabetic retinopathy, eye diseases
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Diabetic retinopathy
Diabetes is an illness in which the value of the glycemia (the concentration of sugar or glucose in the blood) is higher than the norm and needs to be daily reduced with a diet or special therapies. These are based on the use of insulin injections or hyperglycemic substances, in pills. Diabetes causes an alteration of the blood vessels in the whole body, with a particular preference for the capillary vessels, meaning the smaller vessels of our arterial system.
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diabetes, alteration of blood vessels
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Diabetic retinopathy is thus a localized ocular manifestation of diabetes. Diabetic retinopathy is the vasculopathy of the retinal capillaries and develops in various phases. Initially the walls of the capillaries are created in the weakened zone and alternating with thickening zones.
When the capillary vessels have weakened walls, they can locally dilate and form microaneurysms, making the liquid part of blood overflow and form a thickening of the retina called edema, or else allow fatty substances to flow out and accumulate in the retina in the form of yellowish stains called “hard exudations”. In other cases they may break and cause a hemorrhage in the retina or in the vitreous body within the ocular globe.
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diabetic retinopathy
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Instead when the capillaries have walls that are too thick, they may occlude, interrupting the flow of nutritive substances and oxygen substances to the retinal tissues.
As a consequence of the blocking of some capillaries, the contiguous zones try to compensate for the lack of nutritious substances, producing new capillaries. This phenomena is called “neovascularization” and constitutes a danger inasmuch as these capillaries are produced rapidly and in an disorderly way, and being abnormal, may easily break, causing further hemorrhage.
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neovascularization
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Diabetic retinopathy may be of two main types:
1. Non proliferative diabetic retinopathy: occurs when the capillaries lose substances, enough to cause a macular edema, small hemorrhages in the blocked capillary zones.
2. Proliferative diabetic retinopathy characterized in the initial phase of capillary blockage with retinal stains in the form of cotton balls. In the main proliferative stage abnormal capillaries develop stimulated by the occlusion of the small retinal vessels. At this point hemorrhages result, even serious ones, due to the breaking of the newly formed capillaries, and the formation of fibrous tissue which in contracting can exert a pulling force on the retina until it detaches. In this phase a vitreal hemorrhage may come about. |
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non proliferative diabetic retinopathy, proliferative diabetic retinopathy
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Contact Us
For particular needs contact Angelo Appiotti’s Perfect Vision Team, with professionalism and courtesy at your disposal.
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