Retinopathy is a condition in which the retina is damaged. The retina sends signals to your brain that help you see images. When retinopathy is not treated, it can cause blindness. High blood pressure and diabetes are two types of retinopathy. While both cause retinal damage, they have different causes.

Hypertensive retinopathy is caused by high blood pressure (hypertension), while diabetic retinopathy is caused by diabetes (high blood sugar). In this article, you will learn how the symptoms are different for each case.

The main differences between hypertensive retinopathy and diabetic retinopathy

Symptoms

In the early stages of retinopathy, no symptoms may appear at all. 2 Symptoms may come and go away so quickly that you don’t think there’s a problem. But as the disease progresses, changes in vision may become worse and symptoms of
hypertensive retinopathy often occur

• Vision loss
• Double Vision
• Grim vision
• Headaches

Symptoms of diabetic retinopathy

• Difficulty reading
• Difficulty seeing things away
• Seeing dark floating streaks or spots

Causes

There are a lot of common factors between diabetic retinopathy and high blood pressure. Both lead to damage to the blood vessels of the eye. Damage can also cause retinal deformities.1 But the root causes of each condition are still different.

High blood pressure retinopathy

When blood pressure is too high, it eventually damages the blood vessels in the retina. This pressure causes the blood vessels in the eye to rupture and bleed, damaging the nerves of the eye. The arteries that carry blood to the retina and the veins that carry blood away from the retina are blocked

Diabetic retinopathy

High blood sugar blocks the blood vessels in your eyes and leads to bleeding. New blood vessels grow in your eyes to compensate for this, but they are weaker and will start bleeding as well

Diagnosis

Regardless of the cause, retinopathy is diagnosed through an eye examination by an ophthalmologist, a doctor focused on eye care. They can see how well your eyes are working and identify any damage to the muscles and blood vessels in your eyes.

Some of the things they look for include:

How sharp is your vision: You will be asked to read the letters on the eye chart from afar. You can look through the phoropter device, a device that tests for myopia, farsightedness, and astigmatism.

Field of View:

This tests how well your peripheral or full vision is.

Color Vision:

Using colored dot images, this test will check for color blindness.

Physical health of the eye:

The drops will enlarge the pupil (dilation). This allows your doctor to examine your cornea, retina, lens, optic nerves, and blood vessels. Sometimes this can be done without stretching using optical tomography (OCT), which is a non-surgical test. This takes pictures of the inside of your eye.

Intraocular pressure test:

This is checked for glaucoma, a condition in which the optic nerve is damaged.
Conclusion
Retinopathy is diagnosed by an ophthalmologist, a doctor who specializes in eye care. The exam will include checking your eyesight, the health of your eyes and any damage to the optic nerve.

Treatment

Treatment plans for the two conditions may be different, but early diagnosis will prevent further damage to your eyes

Diabetic retinopathy

If you are in the early stages of diabetic retinopathy, your eye doctor may ask you to visit you often for checkups to monitor for any changes. Treatment plan. Retinal damage caused by diabetes is irreversible, but you can prevent it from worsening and preserve your vision.

Treatments may include:

• Injections of anti-VEGF: When blood vessels in the eye are damaged, a protein called VEGF is produced. It causes vascular leakage and retinal swelling. Anti-VEGF drugs inhibit the production of this protein and help relieve these symptoms
• Laser treatment: This procedure reduces inflammation by shrinking blood vessels
• Vitrectomy: This eye surgery involves removing the vitreous, a gel-like fluid attached to the retina, and performing repairs to the retina. After that, the vitreous is replaced by another liquid, usually silicone oil

High blood pressure retinopathy

• The only treatment for hypertensive retinopathy is lowering high blood pressure. You may be able to reverse the damage because the retina can heal, but this depends on how severe the damage is
• Some ophthalmologists use different classification systems to identify retinal damage. The Keith-Wagener-Barker rating system has created four grades of damage
  in the first row, you may not have any symptoms. In the second and third rows, the retina may be inflamed and blood vessels can leak. For the fourth grade, the optic nerve, which transmits visual information to the brain, may also swell. Grade IV retinal damage may be long-lasting even after blood
  pressure is controlled but in recent years, some healthcare providers have used the Mitchell-Wong grading system. It combines Grades 1 and 2 in one
  abstract phase
  Retinopathy treatments may include eye injections, laser treatment or surgery. A low-salt diet, exercise, diabetes and hypertension management will also help.

Prevention

• The only way to prevent hypertensive retinopathy is to control your blood pressure.4 Limiting the amount of salt in your diet, maintaining a healthy weight and exercising regularly will help. Your health care provider may also prescribe blood pressure medications.
• Controlling high blood sugar helps prevent diabetic retinopathy. This means regular exercise, taking diabetes medications correctly, and eating a healthy diet. Sometimes when you do everything right, it can be difficult to control your blood sugar. In this case, your healthcare provider may need to change your treatment plan to regain blood sugar control.

Summary

• Diabetic retinopathy and hypertension are similar. Both cause damage to the retina, but they have different causes. Diabetic retinopathy is caused by high blood sugar. High blood pressure retinopathy is caused by high blood pressure. Both conditions are diagnosed by an ophthalmologist. Treatment options may include surgery, laser therapy or eye injections. Your healthcare provider may also recommend that you closely monitor your condition without treatment. Controlling blood sugar and blood pressure is the only way to prevent morbidity.

A word from Ibsar Specialized Center

• Diabetic retinopathy and high blood pressure are conditions that can feel like the diagnosis came out of nowhere. Especially since symptoms are often absent. Once noticeable, it can be very worrying. The good news is that two types of retinopathy can be prevented.
• Visit your healthcare provider regularly so that any problems related to high blood sugar or high blood pressure can be found in their early stages. If you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure or diabetes, be sure to control your condition through diet and medications. Consult your eye doctor about how often to have eye exams.