Introduction
Diabetes mellitus is a disease where the sugar levels in one’s blood is above the normal level. This is caused when the body does not produce enough insulin or the body’s cells do not respond correctly to insulin or both.
A manifestation of diabetes in the eye is diabetic retinopathy .This affects the retina of the eye. It is when small vessels which are damaged spill into the retina. These blood vessels usually nourish the retina. These blood vessels get blocked which causes irregular new blood vessels to form. Bleeding into the vitreous gel may occur due to these new blood vessels being weak. Retinal detachment may also occur because of these new blood vessels pulling on the retina. Diabetic retinopathy is a major cause of visual impairment in middle aged people and visual loss in older people. It affects almost all individuals who have had diabetes for more than fifteen years. It affects both Type 1 and Type 2 individuals. Diabetic retinopathy is hardly detected in the first few years of diabetes. It is the most common micro vascular complication of people with diabetes. The risk of developing diabetic retinopathy is increased with high blood sugar and high blood pressure.
There are two types of diabetic retinopathy, proliferative and non-proliferative. Proliferative diabetic retinopathy is where
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If hemorrhages are small they are look similar to microaneurysms and they also occur like microaneurysms but they are found in the deeper layers of the retina, such as the inner nuclear and outer plexiform layers. Their appearance is a red dot with a density that is uneven. The red dot will be less than 125 microns. This characteristic will not be present if the haemorrhages are round in shape and smooth margins. Sometimes it may be difficult to differentiate between microaneurysms and small haemorrhages. In this case it will be classified as a HMa which is a microaneurysms or a small