Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Dealing with diabetes

I have all my diabetic patients taking fish oil as an anti inflammatory if its OK with their diabetic specialist.

Regardless, i have them taking Alpha Lipoic Acid to reduce the risk of peripheral neuropathy. I am pissed many drs dont have their pts on that and for that reason.

Its quite common for even controlled diabetics to show nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) after having type 2 for 10 years (retinal microaneuryisms) due to blood sugar spikes after meals causing inflammataion which damages the retinal microvasculature.

I have patients with NPDR I have followed for 20 years who did not progress to proliferative D Ret (PDR) and need lasre tx of the retina.

Weight reduction sx is sometimes beneficial to be able to adequately control BS if a person is extremely overweight.

Always have a yearly dilated diabetic retinal evaluation. If NPDR is found you should be seen at least every 6 mo and gonioscopy should be performed to rule out neovascularization of the irido-corneal angle and iris neovascularization which can quickly lead to intractable diabetic neovasc glaucoma.

Gopher, those B/S levels are extremely conducive to causing strokes and heart attacks.

Normally, NPDR will be present for years before progressing to PDR where new, brittle vessels grow into the retina and vitreous humor of the eye in the bodies attempt to bing more blood to a starving retina due to poor circulation.

Those vessels can rupture and release blood into the vitreous body of the posterior chamber of the eye. This results in scarring and contraction of the vitreous which pulls and tears the retina away from the choroidal vascular layer behind thevretina.

The retinal vessels feed only the inner layers of the retina while the choroid feeds the outer layers.

This or untreatable diabetinc glaucoma is what causes loss of vision.