Maculophathy

Sometimes maculopathy is mild and clears up on its own. If there is only a small amount of exudate and your visual acuity (ability to read the eye chart) is good, you may just be monitored in the surveillance arm of the screening service. If there is a larger amount of exudate and/or your visual acuity has dropped, you may be referred to the Hospital Eye Service for an OCT. This test will show whether or not any changes are significant and whether or not any treatment is advisable. If there are no significant changes, you would be referred back to screening. If changes are borderline, you may be monitored in hospital until the changes clear up or become significant. If the changes are significant, you may be offered treatment. Treatment is most successful when caught early, as in this case.

At this stage, you just need to worry about continuing to keep good diabetic control and making sure you attend all your eye appointments.

Hopefully it will clear up on its own if not there are effective treatments. anti Vegf injections being the most effective on average.
My own issue is Macular Odema a step on from yours which is treated by the above anti vegf injections.
I get the flashing or flickering thing too all be it intermittently and visual distortion such a straight lines looking wavy in places.
One other test i do is look at a tv with no input just the fuzzy white noise with each eye, areas of damage show up as blurred spots.
You can check further with a grid of lines too [https://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/amsler-grid.htm] look carefully at the grid with each eye looking for wavy or missing bits of lines don't move your eyes focus on a dot in the centre of the grid.
The reason I mention this is because it is an easy quick and dirty way of monitoring things.
Above all don't panic nothing will go down hill super fast with this. [i have had this for 3 years+]
Obviously there is plenty of info on the web too. [as well as other members of this great forum]

I hope the above is of some help.

All the best

M

I echo what @Dark Horse is saying....

its really nothing to overly worry about at this stage...

the beauty of regular check ups and good technology is that we can stay up to date with every tiny little change that takes place.....even though in this case, there is a good chance you wont need or may never need treatment for it......

I too have observable maculopathy in one eye....it freaked me out too despite having no effect to my vision....

stable control will help it ....

I just had a letter after my retinal screening saying that I need to go for an O CT scan please can someone let me know what this entails
Carol

COS1916 said:

Well I just had a private consultant look at my eyes (dilated) and an Oct scan which revealed a small amount of exudates - the Oct scan also revealed that my right Macular was raised (indicating fluid ?) !

Left eye is ok

The consultant advised that it would probably require treatment with an injection of anti-vegf ?

Do you think I need a second opinion or is this standard advice

What are the eye injections like ?

My NHS follow up appointment is due 1st October

Stressed is not the word

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I have oedema beside the fovea in both eyes and have received those injections several times for each.
Its generally a course of 3 injections around a month apart.
Here is my description of the procedure i gave from another thread on this:

Make sure you insist they wash out all the iodine after the procedure.
I am very sensitive to iodine , the first time i had the procedure once the anaesthetic wore of it was as my eyes were filled with broken glass for hours, not nice.
The procedure itself is not painful , but it is not exactly relaxing!
The process is lots of drops of anaesthetic and antibiotics [the a for mentioned iodine] into the eye , when numbed the eyelids are help open with a clip you are then asked to look sideways or up at a target [the doctor will keep you informed what is going on all the time so no surprises] the injection itself feels like a pressure and brief ache , you will even see the liquid go in.
After the injections you may see black dots which are bubbles these go in a few hours.
Your vision may blur completely after 10-15 mins ,it varies with me longest i had was first time near 2 days last one it never got fully blurred.
Do ensure you have transport available to get you home after the procedure as driving is a no no.
Obviously the above is only my own personal experience .

I hope the above info helps. please try not to stress to much the treatment does help.

COS1916 said:

Thanks again Mr Cat - I appreciate your reply

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You are welcome

COS1916 said:

Hi Carty

An OCT scan involves a machine where your eyes are photographed (like the ones used in the Diabetic screening)

The images show the thickness of the retina / an image of the retina (like the images from the retinal screening programme) and various other parameters

It will probably only take a few minutes - the consultant will then go over the results

Good luck

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Thanks I have had dodgy eyes since I was 18 months old ,now 70 + so had lots of tests etc I just didn't know what O T C meant
Carol

COS1916 said:

I have been reading some comments on this forum regarding the sudden lowering of high blood glucose which results in a worsening of any retinopathy present

Does anyone know why this happens ? And once you have stable control then does the retinopathy stabilise and eventually resolve ?

Many thanks

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That was my experience all my symptoms got worse when bloods got back to normality , there was a paper cited somewhere of the forum describing the mechanisms of action for this .
long and short of it is that things can continue to worsen for 3-4 years after normalisation[will try to search for the paper if i get time]
Joy eh!

had a quick dig about nothing turned up but it is out there somewhere.
The impression i have is that the growth of weak blood vessels once initiated need constant monitoring.
I initially thought that a course of injections was all that was needed but regular update or treatments might actually be the case.
Oh the joy!
Each of use is different though so your millage may vary, fingers crossed for you

joyous ain't it.
fingers crossed.