Eye test?

Tilnoom

Member
Messages
7
I'm all booked in for delivery now but have a final appointment with the diabetes team at my hospital in a fortnight. My consultant wants to put some drops in my eyes and run some tests - I am assuming diabetes impairs your vision or something?

Has anyone else had this done?

Thanks in advance,

Tils.
 

cugila

Master
Messages
10,272
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People who are touchy.......feign indignation at the slightest thing. Hypocrites, bullies and cowards.
I assume you are talking about a retinal scan, where they take a picture of the back of your eye to check for damage due to diabetes.

The procedure can vary slightly. Sometimes – or perhaps with some cameras – you don't need drops to dilate the pupils. But most people I know do actually get a drop in each eye so the camera can "see in" properly. The drops may be a little stingy for a few moments, but no big deal.

If you get the drops you'll wait for maybe 15 minutes for them to take effect. Then you sit in front of a machine – the type of thing you'd expect in an opticians, where you rest your chin on a pad and look through lenses. You just look at a little light and they take a picture of the back of your eye. No pain, no fuss, no hassle.

Usually these days it's a digital picture so you may get to see, on screen, the network of blood vessels at the back of the eye. Really interesting.

If the drops have been used to dilate the pupils, be warned that even a cloudy day will seem unpleasantly bright when you go outside, so take a pair of dark glasses. You can't drive right away if you've had the drops.

The worst of the brightness passes within an hour or so, and everything's back to normal vision in a couple of hours.

So don't worry about it at all.
 

Tilnoom

Member
Messages
7
Fantastic, thank you :)

I had been warned to bring someone to drive me home, so hubby will have to take another day off work. D'oh!

Tils.
 

joss.t2

Active Member
Messages
35
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I'm all booked in for delivery now but have a final appointment with the diabetes team at my hospital in a fortnight. My consultant wants to put some drops in my eyes and run some tests - I am assuming diabetes impairs your vision or something?

Has anyone else had this done?

Thanks in advance,

Tils.
 

joss.t2

Active Member
Messages
35
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hi
all diabetics are offered this in the uk. On nhs. they put drops in your eyes to open the iris and take photos. To check the back of your eyes. Usually done by specialist maybe in dayclinic. My mum goes to the local hospital.
The retiner... cant spell. You cant drive for a while.
 

David147

BANNED
Messages
93
Type of diabetes
Parent
Treatment type
Insulin
I went to my first eye exam when I was in the 5th grade. I think the worst part was always the "puff of air" test used to check for glaucoma (this is when you look into a machine and a quick puff of air goes into each eye), but with new technology, that test is not near as common as it was when I was your age. You can also expect:

1) Visual Acuity Test: You will have to look at a chart with letters across the room to determine how well you can see them.
2) Refraction Assessment: You will look through a phoroptor (like a high-tech mask with wheels of different lenses) to determine which combination of lenses will give you the best vision.
* This is where the doctor will ask "Which looks better, A or B?"
3) Slit-Lamp Examination: This will be a microscope with a small light to see any small abnormalities on the front or back of your eye.

As you probably already know, 20/20 vision is perfect, and from there with testing, your doctor will determine what your vision is. Say you have 20/100 vision; This means that you would have to stand 20 feet away from something too see it, when someone with normal vision could see from 100 feet away.

Give or take a test or two, these are the most common. Trust me though, if I had a choice to see any kind of doctor, I'd go with the eye doctor. You'll be fine. Good luck.