Blurred vision

pharmaceutics said:

You dont prevent something 10-20 years from now by making it happen now! Its like starting a fire to prevent a fire.

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You miss the point. The long term damage would be to the retina at back of your eyes. The problem you are having now is not with your retina but with the cornea at front of your eyes which has changed shape slightly due to the change in BG.

I agree with @Mr_Pot They are not the same thing at all. You are over-thinking it, which is understandable in your occupational circumstances. The blurred vision at the beginning of taking control and reducing blood sugars quickly is nothing to do with the retina. It is the little capillaries that are affected. Once your body becomes adjusted to lower levels, it should disappear.

Mr_Pot said:

You miss the point. The long term damage would be to the retina at back of your eyes. The problem you are having now is not with your retina but with the cornea at front of your eyes which has changed shape slightly due to the change in BG.

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Sorry but I do not miss the point at all on this. Please reflect about it: It does not make any risk benefit sense to in order to prevent damage to the retina in the future to do damage to the lens/cornea now by guidelines and hence GPs following them advising BG levels to go down so steeply even in otherwise healthy folks like myself two weeks ago - and those posts from other people in similar situation all over the world that I have been digging up to look for reassurance while completely terrified by what is happening to my vision. BOTH the retina and the cornea are crucial to an effective vision. What good is for me or someone else newly diagnosed to have a perfect retina as confirmed by an opthalmologist yesterday in the eye casualty emergency unit if when I write in this computer this one box where I am writing as to occupy the entire 27 inch screen so that I can see the text and when I walked in a supermarket this AM or in a bookstore yesterday I couldnt read any food label or book even, in despair after trying large hardcover books with no success, large print books for children? I can thus painfully witness that the lens of the eye is very important for vision. Maintenance of good vision, either via healthy nonstressed retina (avoiding the stress of high uncontrolled BG) or lens of the eye non stressed (avoiding the stress of steep declines in BG) should be one of the crucial objectives in diabetes complications prevention and treatment. In fact in the 2 weeks since I have been diagnosed I read everywhere that the rewards of keeping BG lower and under control are precisely to keep our vision, feet, kidneys and heart functioning properly. And I believe that surely advising something (bring BG levels ASAP the clinical pharmacist even suggested to double the metformin dose!) that affects the lens of the eye / cornea so much shouldnt be done so lightly as it is being done to newly diagnosed folks like myself without any warning or caution or even recommendation on what to or expect if it happens. I am glad I found this forum otherwise I wouldnt even have hope of this improving. I guess the good news is that unlike the retina the lens of the eye apparently can adjust and come back from poor functioning in 6 weeks. But mine has not come back yet this week and has the opthalmologist said yesterday they believe it will come back in a couple of weeks, have seen that in other patients, but dont have the gospel if in any specific case it will indeed come back and well if it doesnt comeback they say I will have to wear glasses all the time to function. This when until less than 2 weeks ago I only needed glasses to read very fine print in paperbacks. I believe this crazy and is indeed to start a fire (lens of the eye affected now severily even if I surely hope so temporarily due to BG steeply going down) to prevent a fire (retinopathy in the future).

Bluetit1802 said:

I agree with @Mr_Pot They are not the same thing at all. You are over-thinking it, which is understandable in your occupational circumstances. The blurred vision at the beginning of taking control and reducing blood sugars quickly is nothing to do with the retina. It is the little capillaries that are affected. Once your body becomes adjusted to lower levels, it should disappear.

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Hi Bluetit thank you I am really thankfull that despite having also eye problems you take the time to reaassure and encourage some one else! Kudos for you and humanity at its best in solidarity. I understand well after studying this issue terrified that the retina (if we use a watch metaphora for the eye "the inner workings of a watch"), the lens (the "face of the watch" ) and the cornea ("the glass covering the watch") are different things and according to my opthalmogist the retina is fine but the lens has been affected by the steep BG decline. Yes I am scared and I pray that what folks state here happened to them also happens to me (lens getting back to normal and thus vision withing 6 weeks). I agree that I am overthinking this because I am far from being retired and I make and provide a good living for my family inclunding my small children by reading, editing, commenting on and writing many highly technical documents daily and in several different languages, but then again these days who doesnt rely on a good vision for all kinds of other professions? So besides frightned I am upset that me and other newly diagnosed patients are not told that this can happen if they drop levels very suddenly and in fact are even drown in medication right away without even being a given a chance to just first drop the BG sugar levels more slowly without harming the lens of the eye and vision. I will keep you and the other folks who cared and provided reassurance here posted about whether the blurred vision disappears. Thanks again for support!

pharmaceutics said:

Sorry but I do not miss the point at all on this. Please reflect about it: It does not make any risk benefit sense to in order to prevent damage to the retina in the future to do damage to the lens/cornea now by guidelines and hence GPs following them advising BG levels to go down so steeply even in otherwise healthy folks like myself two weeks ago - and those posts from other people in similar situation all over the world that I have been digging up to look for reassurance while completely terrified by what is happening to my vision. BOTH the retina and the cornea are crucial to an effective vision. What good is for me or someone else newly diagnosed to have a perfect retina as confirmed by an opthalmologist yesterday in the eye casualty emergency unit if when I write in this computer this one box where I am writing as to occupy the entire 27 inch screen so that I can see the text and when I walked in a supermarket this AM or in a bookstore yesterday I couldnt read any food label or book even, in despair after trying large hardcover books with no success, large print books for children? I can thus painfully witness that the lens of the eye is very important for vision. Maintenance of good vision, either via healthy nonstressed retina (avoiding the stress of high uncontrolled BG) or lens of the eye non stressed (avoiding the stress of steep declines in BG) should be one of the crucial objectives in diabetes complications prevention and treatment. In fact in the 2 weeks since I have been diagnosed I read everywhere that the rewards of keeping BG lower and under control are precisely to keep our vision, feet, kidneys and heart functioning properly. And I believe that surely advising something (bring BG levels ASAP the clinical pharmacist even suggested to double the metformin dose!) that affects the lens of the eye / cornea so much shouldnt be done so lightly as it is being done to newly diagnosed folks like myself without any warning or caution or even recommendation on what to or expect if it happens. I am glad I found this forum otherwise I wouldnt even have hope of this improving. I guess the good news is that unlike the retina the lens of the eye apparently can adjust and come back from poor functioning in 6 weeks. But mine has not come back yet this week and has the opthalmologist said yesterday they believe it will come back in a couple of weeks, have seen that in other patients, but dont have the gospel if in any specific case it will indeed come back and well if it doesnt comeback they say I will have to wear glasses all the time to function. This when until less than 2 weeks ago I only needed glasses to read very fine print in paperbacks. I believe this crazy and is indeed to start a fire (lens of the eye affected now severily even if I surely hope so temporarily due to BG steeply going down) to prevent a fire (retinopathy in the future).

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Metformin does not reduce BG much and it certainly doesn't do it quickly. The rapid change in your BG is due to your change in diet. If you don't have the patience to wait for your eyesight to recover then return to your previous diet and take the long term consequences. I have tried to reassure you but you seem determined to think the worst.

What is written above by Mr Pot is sad because devoided of healthy risk benefit balance and grey considerations. For him is either all white (you must drop suddenly BG even if it costs your vision temporarily by subjecting your eye lens to tremendous osmolarity pressure) or black (if you dont drop suddenly and you are not willing to give an osmolarity shock to your lens you are going to die and your retina is going be destroyed). It seriously misses the point again and he seems to be okay with people with normal vision after being diagnosed with diabetes losing their vision needlessly for 8 weeks up to 600% worse with no warning at all from any health professional or simple precaution to avoid that side effect. Of course no one wants to get their eye retina destroyed by the long term complications of high blood sugar level. HOWEVER, no one should be terrified that they cannot see anything for 2-8 weeks because for the first week they were diagnosed the Blood Glucose was irresponsible dropped suddenly by advice such as the one that Mr Pot maintains and diabetologists do, metformin in excess instead of gradual life style changes for the blood glucose to drop slowly. That causes an osmotic shok to the lens. Many studies that I jave uncovered correlate the sudden drop in blood glucose with up to 6 diopetries of change. Mine in just 2 weeks went from being normal 6/6 (former 20/20) to 6/36 meaning 600% worse in just two weeks and the likes of Mr Pot say I should just live with it instead of having advice to drop it slowly and thus prevent that terrifiying side effect!!!!!!! This terror movie that I went through and many others here go after being newly diagnosed is completely AVOIDABLE and no it doesnt mean you give up controlling your BG and live with the consequences it just means that one should not drop the BG suddenly in one week otherwise vision will get up to 600% worse for 8 weeks and you cannot work. AT least if you are going to do that to people advise them there is an 100% chance that with such a sudden drop they will have that side effect of severe temporary vision loss due to the osmolarity of the lens of the eye beins so affected. Anyway to end up my participation here since I am fed up with advice such as the one I just criticized I want to say that I was terrified some time ago as shown above and I just want to give the good news to people who find this post so that they too have hope when they are terrified that their vision. For some very strange reason no one warns newly diagnosed people with high blood sugar that if their BG drops suddenly that affects the osmolarity of the lens of the eye significantly. As such there is a 100% chance of blurred vision to the point of 6 diopetries worsening of the vision, The degree of temporary loss of vision is correlated to how aprubtly your BG drops (there are many studies published about this especially in Japan and rest of Asia) Idiots and irresponsible (there is no other term) diabetologists endocrinologist which as as soon as you are diagnosed put you into in medication and drop your BG significantly and within a week by pilling on medication without even giving you time for lifestyle changes which would gradually lower BG, they dont tell you nothing of what you will happen to your vision. One day 1-2 weeks after starting to drop BG suddenly you arrive at work and you cannot see nothing. It then takes 4-10 weeks for you to get to normal. In my case I went as low as 6/36 meaning only at 6 meters could I see what a normal eye can see at 36 meters until I got back to my usual 20/20 (6/6 meaning I see at 6 meters at a normal eye sees at 6 meters) after 4-8 weeks. So for 6 weeks I felt like an invalid that couldnt even drive with no warning at all and I see in this foruns many people complaining of the same. Good news is that it indeed almost got close to normal but presbyopia (reading fine print) which was very mild before the sudden drop still got a bit worse and it did not came back to fully normal. Also in not very illuminated environments or excessive artificial light I have trouble reading. Finally by going off medication (500 metformin) after 2 weeks and losing 15 Kg in 8 weeks on a diet following the roy taylor studies plus walking 30-90 minutes daily my levels have gone to 4-5 day so well within normal range and my A1C has also dropped to 6 (not yet completely down because average of 3 months). My retina is fine. Again main message is if you are newly diagnosed dont drop ;levels suddenly in one week unless they are really very high in order to avoid an osmolar shock to your eye lens that will leave you without seeing for 2-10 weeks in some cases. Mine was from week 2 to about 8 for recovery. All the best to everyone and again there is hope by the testimonials and studies for those who like myself arrived terrified here because I had 600% visioning worsening not from high BG but from dropping too sudenlly in one week BG.