National Diabetes Awareness Month

Many people do not understand that diabetes can impact one's eyes. During National Diabetes Awareness Month, we would like to bring your attention to diabetic retinopathy; it's one of the most common forms of diabetic eye disease. It occurs when diabetes affects the retina causing abnormal blood vessels to grow and to bleed. If not treated properly, diabetic retinopathy can cause permanent vision loss. During National Diabetes Awareness Month, you can benefit from scheduling an eye exam.

"You can have floaters in your vision and blurry vision, but usually that's a stage that's much, much more advanced and unfortunately harder for us to treat at that point," said Dr. Katherine L. Duncan, an ophthalmologist. "So it's really important, even if you're having no problems with your vision to come in once a year and just get checked, because if we can catch it at those early stages, we can prevent a lot of vision loss that way."

If you are struggling with vision loss or blindness, please contact SDCB to learn more about our programs.

"How Diabetes can affect your eyes and what you can do to avoid those complications"