When bleeding occurs inside the eye as a complication of diabetic retinopathy, surgery can be done promptly.
When the body's insulin is absolutely insufficient or does not work properly, blood glucose rises; if this continues long term, various metabolic abnormalities and chronic complications occur. This is diabetes.
Diabetes causes various complications; one that affects more than half of people with diabetes is diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy is a disease in which capillaries are blocked by diabetes and hypoxia occurs.
Early on, vision changes little by little as vessels that nourish the retina weaken. Exudates such as lipid or fluid, or bleeding, occur; new vessels form to replace blocked capillaries, or vessels dilate, and the macula becomes swollen. Intravitreal antibody injection is needed in such cases.
When there is bleeding inside the eye, vision is blocked, so the blood must be removed surgically.
Surgery for high-difficulty proliferative diabetic retinopathy should be entrusted to experienced specialists with university-hospital faculty background.
Symptoms of diabetic retinopathy
- 01
Lights sometimes flash in the visual field, or vision looks blurred.
- 02
A feeling of moving objects like flies.
- 03
Vision seems to be covered gradually, as if a curtain were being drawn.
- 04
When looking at a person, the whole upper or lower body is not seen; only part seems visible.
Types of diabetic retinopathy
- 01Nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy
This is the early stage when retinal change begins; various retinal vascular findings, retinal edema, and bleeding appear. Regular exams are used so laser photocoagulation or intravitreal antibody treatment can be given at the right time to stop further progression. If left untreated, it progresses to proliferative diabetic retinopathy.
- 02Proliferative diabetic retinopathy
Abnormal new vessels appear in place of capillaries blocked by diabetes, proliferate, bleed easily, and scarring around those vessels can pull on the retina and cause retinal detachment. Surgery is needed in such cases.
A case of a patient who recovered after surgery at our clinic
