Blurred vision with lower carbs

Have you had high BG for some time?
I ask because as I understand it, when we have high BG, our bodies look for ways to get rid of the extra glucose. One route is the tear ducts which makes our tears slightly sugary which has a different focal length to salty tears. Over time, our eyes adjust to focus through sugar. When we reduce our BG, our eyes need to readjust to focus through salt again. This can take a while but usually returns to normal.

But, it may have nothing to do with this.

helensaramay said:

Have you had high BG for some time?
I ask because as I understand it, when we have high BG, our bodies look for ways to get rid of the extra glucose. One route is the tear ducts which makes our tears slightly sugary which has a different focal length to salty tears. Over time, our eyes adjust to focus through sugar. When we reduce our BG, our eyes need to readjust to focus through salt again. This can take a while but usually returns to normal.

But, it may have nothing to do with this.

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I don't think it is anything to do with tears. As the level of glucose varies, more or less fluid flows into the eye and the minute change of shape affects the focus of the lens. The brain can compensate for this, to some extent, given time. The best of advice is to wait until your BG is stable for a few weeks before deciding you need a different prescription. Some cheap "ready readers" might help in the interim.

It may well be due to reduced blood sugar levels - the lenses in the eye take a while to catch up. If the blurriness doesn't improve within a few weeks, see your optician as it is possible to develop maculopathy between eye screenings.

yeah. a bit worrying but for me it was my blood sugar coming down to normal levels. takes a while for your eyes to adjust. i view it as a good sign ..for me. your case may be different - seek medical help if you are in doubt. but it is not always bad news !

snowmonkey said:

yeah. a bit worrying but for me it was my blood sugar coming down to normal levels. takes a while for your eyes to adjust. i view it as a good sign ..for me. your case may be different - seek medical help if you are in doubt. but it is not always bad news !

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I have the same problem and although I'm low carbing and exercising and keeping BG in good limits I suffer blurred vision. I wear glasses for reading - this is just blurry vision for about a week and it seems to come and go. In fact I started recording it and it's on approximately a monthly cycle. And before anyone says it - I'm male.
As I work abroad and tend to get a bit focussed on things like diet I go for long periods eating a pretty much identical diet day to day. So for me there are no obvious external factors.

Robin101 said:

I have the same problem and although I'm low carbing and exercising and keeping BG in good limits I suffer blurred vision. I wear glasses for reading - this is just blurry vision for about a week and it seems to come and go. In fact I started recording it and it's on approximately a monthly cycle. And before anyone says it - I'm male.
As I work abroad and tend to get a bit focussed on things like diet I go for long periods eating a pretty much identical diet day to day. So for me there are no obvious external factors.

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Robin, don't think that men don't have monthly cycles too. We are all some where in the spectrum between male and female. I have known quite a few men in my time that get low and tearful every 28 days. I'm not suggesting this to be the cause of your problems, just pointing out that monthly cycles are not a female only attribute! As it happens, I'm supposedly well in control of my T2, but I have quite long periods of eye problems, ranging from excess tears, to feeling heavy and focus issues. I haven't been able to pin it down to BG or BP as yet, nor 28 day cycles

My vision shoots up and down like nobodies business and it isn't only for high or low reasons. When my blood sugars change eg on holiday in the US, my vision changes as well but it always returns within a few ( up to 14) days.

Omg! How many issues of BG...what is frustrating is the fact that symptoms of both low BG and high are almost similar!

onnecar said:

Just started testing out some low carb meals. Not gone into it fully yet, but I have been seeing if I can keep the carbs lower. Been doing this for about a week now. However I have suddenly noticed that I have blurred vision, even though my bg and bp seem okay. I am on metformin and linagliptin. I have not gone fully into it as I will need to see the nurse to come off Linagliptin first and I'm due for fasting bloods in 2 months. After having trawled the net I see that some people do get blurred vision on reducing carbs. Should I now wait till I start the thing properly. I think I might have to expect some side effects by the looks of it. I'm not newly diagnosed I've been diabetic for around 10 years. I am planning my approach to try to reverse my diabetes and get off some or all diabetic meds. I'm 66. Not sure of my weight but I think it's around 65kg. I'm not large. I might be less, waiting for new scales to arrive. I don't normally weigh myself, just trying to remember what weight she told me at the surgery. The whole thing seems like a bit of a minefield.

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Hi if blood glucose drops to suddenly the chances of osmotic changes in lens are quiet high (many studies subjecting people to sudden drops in BG and observing it) the good thing is that vision will come back to close to previous levels in weeks unless is a retina issue

onnecar said:

little mention is made of this though in the side-effects to low carbing.

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Is there some empirical evidence?

onnecar said:

Yes it's been about 6 weeks now and it has stopped blurring pretty much which is good news. funny that little mention is made of this though in the side-effects to low carbing.

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I guess it is a side effect of lowering BG not necessarily low-carbing.
For example, people with type 1 may experience the same thing when they lower their BG with insulin.
This was definitely mentioned to me when I was first diagnosed.

It is something which has been mentioned a fair few times on this forum - low carbing when not diabetic would not have the same effect, so it is not really a side effect of the low carbing but the high glucose levels.

[QUOTE="Just seems logical to include all potential side effects.[/QUOTE]

Onnecar you are right the health professionals are looking away and ignoring an extreme severe side effect of dropping blood glucose levels suddenly either by a drastic diet or diabetes medication. The severe side effect (up to 6 diopetries) in extremely significant temporary loss of vision peaking at 1-2 weeks after starting medication (which usually coincides with the day you are diagnosed and have no clue about diabetes so you just take the pills no questions asked) and lasting for 2-10 weeks more before returning to somewhat normal levels (in some cases not completely) affecting your work, your life and terrifying you because until this temporary loss of vision disappears you dont really know that is temporary for you. Yet no no one cares about this severe side effects, no one warns newly diagnosed patients about this and health professionbals try to look away or lie about this side effect of the medication. In newly diagnosed patients case case (which was mine 8 weeks ago) we are sitting ducks for this severe loss of vision, since upon being diagnosed we are so scared that we change diet and start to exercize more and at the same time on top of that the physicians are eager to add metformin, glicazide etc without even waiting for the results of the lifestyle changes, compounding the probleme and causing extreme drop in one week in BG and thus the corresponding severe loss of vision. This could be prevented if the BG was responsibly by health professionals lowred slowly in the first 3 weeks upon being diagnosed not in one week. The studies I found show that if BG drop is gradual this temporary loss of vision is less serious and if it does occur the recovery is fast, in 3 weeks instead of up to 10 weeks if the drop in BG is steep in the first week. This is not mentioned in any of the diabetes medication label as a side effects and are neither new patients warned that in one to two weeks of starting meds they will vision will be seriously, up to 600% worse or more, affected. It is a big deal to me as if you go trough this forum you see patient after patient and their family members scarred that their vision suddenly become all blurred and having no clue because health professionals just hide that this is a fact. Some health professionals, in fact the majority even lie that the blurred vision with the retina fine but the lens suddenly having an osmolarity shock is due to high blood glucose levels. It is not the studies clearly show that this is due to the sudden and abrupt drop of BloodGlucose in newly diagnosed patients. The solution would be simple enough, when a health care diagnoses a patient the drop of BG should be gradual and the patient should start first with more exercize and diet and only then, if necesary, change to medications. But they want to start you on meds right away and forever not caring at all that sudden temporary loss of vision can be a significant issue terrifying newly diagnosed patients and perfectly avoidable if the drop im BG is lower. All the best

onnecar said:

I was on diet control for around 7 to 8 years before glucose levels seemed to go out of control and I started taking meds. Once I started on the meds though I found i needed more and more. I agree that blurred vision should be included as a potential side effect.

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That is the point I am trying to make when one is newly diagnosed one should be given the opportunity for diet and exercize and not be placed on meds right away to so steeply drop BG in one week. Diet by itself (without meds simultaneously) can cause some blurred vision but not severe (because the blurred vision intensity and vision deterioration is correlated with how steep the BG drops in the first week). Instead my endocrinologist put me me in metformin and glicazide (the former I stopped in two weeks and the later right away after one day) that BG come steeply down from 11ish to 7 in just one day and to 5 in one week. That is a drop of more than 100% so as predicted by articles that I read after (before no one told me you or warn me and metformin label only talks about intestinal problems as common AES) the blurred vision was very severe and up to 600% worse than normal and it lasted for about 8 weeks. Had I continued with the glicazide plus the mteformin (which I only took 500 for those two weeks but they wanted 1000 right away!) instead of just diet and exercize (which I have now been doing keeping fasting glucose at healthy 4-5) I probably would have had hypoglicemia and BG levels would spiral out of control with more and more meds being necessary to correct each other which what I see in my short experience since being diagnosed back in mid April this year is what they want to condemn us right away and forever. For me it is really inspiring to hear from you that for 7 to 8 years diet control alone was sufficient for good BG. Except from Roy Taylor at Univ of Glasgow and a few others no one will tell you that diet can be sufficient when you are diganosed they just want to start you in as much meds as possible and to keep your body dependent on meds only pay lip service to diet and exercize for example I was amazed to hear in diabetes education group sponsored by NHS that you can drink up to 14 (!!!) units of alchool every week and only walk 15 minutes a day (100_ min per week). Of course if one "diet and exercize" is going to be like that then one is going to need more and more meds and all the complications that come from them. From my part I also choose diet, restriciting carbs and alchool now only on party or celebration days and walking/exercizing at least 30 minutes a day, preferentially 60, after losing 15 Kg in a diet now I eat moderately just a tad below the 2000 calories I need but restricting carbs.