irregular blood sugar and diabetes can have drastic effects on the eyes unfortunately it
can cause blurry vision and if bad enough can lead to permanent blindness so in this video
I want to go over three ways blood sugar can cause blurry vision let's focus in
hey howdy everybody this is Dr Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, with the Channel all about helping
you with your eyes now number one blood sugar can actually change your glasses prescription
fluctuate your prescription and sometimes drastically okay we're gonna go a little
bit into depth here to explain how this happens when you have high blood sugar lots of glucose
in your bloodstream that glucose will start to float around in the fluid in the front part of
your eye that surrounds the crystalline lens this lens is right behind the iris or the color part
of your eye now glucose actually gets absorbed into the lens the lens changes it to sorbitol a
type of alcohol sugar and that changes the osmotic pressure bringing in a lot of fluid and water into
the lens that causes the lens to change shape it actually causes the lens to get thicker and this
is why the prescription changes or fluctuates because this lens the thickness of this lens is
changing or fluctuating now luckily this can be temporary as especially when you get your
blood sugar under control it will get rid of that fluid that got sucked in there and get rid of the
sorbitol and everything and so that lens can go back to its regular shape and your prescription
can return to normal number two it actually can increase the risk of cataracts and increase the
risk of cataracts in the earlier ages cataracts happen in that same crystalline lens that we just
talked about it actually can cause clouding of that lens which Blocks Your Vision some reports
show that diabetes and blood sugar can actually double your risk of getting cataracts and the
reason why this happens is along the same lines as that osmotic pressure that changes when your
glucose gets absorbed into the lens it will change the shape of the lens and over time
that constant change to that shape can actually lead to cataracts or clouding of this lens now
diabetes and blood sugar is definitely linked to a type of cataract called cortical cataracts
also a specific one called a PSC or a posterior subcapsular cataract it's a mouthful now a PSC
is a specific type of cataract that happens on the back side of the lens and if it crosses over the
central visual axis it can really cause blurry vision and all of a sudden almost some people
will feel like they wake up and go whoa my vision got really blurry in my right eye and they'll come
in and we'll find out that they all of a sudden have a PSC and it actually just crossed their
visual access causing that decreased Vision causing that blurry vision now the part that
stinks here is that a cataract really isn't reversible so when it gets to the point where
it's a visually significant cataract usually the fix is a cataract surgery to clear up your vision
now if you have any questions what we covered in this video definitely leave it in the comments
below I try my best to answer all the questions down there for number three we're actually going
to move further back into the eye to the macula the macula is the center Bullseye of your eyes
this is where the eye is trying to focus all of the light to this is where you have your best
clearest detailed Vision now with high blood sugar and diabetes it can actually cause
bleeding thickening and swelling of the macula which can definitely cause blurry vision this
is called macular edema and this is something eye doctors take very very seriously in fact
there's a specific type of macular edema called clinically significant macular edema when we're
looking for cases with diabetes to see what the appropriate treatment might be and depending on
the severity treatment could include a laser laser photocoagulation or an injection to help get rid
of that fluid or that swelling at the macula now not only could this cause significant blurry
vision but it can also distort the vision where you once saw a straight line sometimes they might
be curvy or wavy and for this reason and the other reasons it is very important that you go in for
your eye exams in fact we call it diabetic eye exams because we want to specifically and very
carefully look for all of these conditions because in a lot of these cases the earlier you catch it
the better the outcome can be unfortunately there are many other ways that diabetes and
blood sugar high blood sugar low blood sugar can affect the eyes so again definitely get
your eyes checked make sure everything's great if you want to learn more about the
eyes definitely check out my other videos right here I'm Dr Neal Guymon, Dr EyeGuy stay focused