Eye Screening

Hi. It does sound to me that you may have some early signs of retinopathy? What was your last HBa1C and is your blood sugar under good control?

suevm said:

Just had my 3rd routine annual eye screening. The letter arrived this morning and I expected it to tell me the usual, i.e. results all ok.
However, I've been asked to go for further testing at a different hospital, with advice on how to reduce the risk of developing sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy. Does anyone know what this type of letter actually means? Should I be worried?

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The referral to the Ophthalmology Clinic is standard if they pick-up any changes in your eyes, the ophthalmologist will examine your eyes and determine if any treatment is needed and will advise you on what you should do next.

Do have a look at the following website, it has a wealth of information on diabetic retinopathy and explains what background retinopathy is and how you should control your bg, bp and cholesterol levels:

http://www.diabeticretinopathy.org.uk/Information_for_patients.html

Good luck and hope all works out well.

It might just be a case of making sure as its best to get onto these things early. If you do have some.early signs of retinopathy it is definately good if they catch it early. Either way try not to stress too much about it as thats not good for your BS. It could be something but it could also be nothing.

Reasons for being referred to the hospital eye clinic following screening are:-
1) The photograhic images may not be clear enough to assess. (This is not unusual, for example it could be due to cataract.) The hospital would use different equipment to look inside the eye so would be able to assess the eye for retinopathy.
2) Some diabetic retinopathy changes may have been seen which could become sight-threatening if not treated. The hospital eye clinic would do further tests to see if this is the case. If not, they might discharge you back to screening. If there are mild changes, the hospital may monitor more frequently and hope that with improved control of glucose, B.P. etc. the changes will improve and not need treating. If there are more serious changes, the hospital may offer treatment e.g. injections or laser.
3) Some non-diabetic changes might have been seen which need further investigation. These could include signs of glaucoma, AMD etc.

Does your letter say anything else which would give a clue? Otherwise, you can contact your GP who should have been informed by the eye screening programme the reason for your referral. In the meantime, do whatever you can to improve your control of blood glucose, blood pressure and lipids.

Just to add to the above post. I have my diabetes eye check with my local optometrist but I also go once a year to the hospital eye clinic and theres nothing wrong with my eyes so it could just be precautionary.

I have a tad bit of retinopathy I was really worried about at first, but with switching to the pump it's actually clearing up by itself. I'm not sure it'll ever go away but my sight has improved and everything. Even if there are minor changes, there's always hope