Diabetic Retinopathy Risk after Weight Loss Surgery

Even with normal blood sugar after weight loss surgery, there is a continued need to monitor the progression of diabetic retinopathy in order to prevent vision loss. What does weight loss surgery have to do with diabetic retinopathy? Researchers reporting at the American Diabetes Association on a small pilot study found weight-loss surgery might accelerate progression of diabetic retinopathy in some cases. In the study 17.5% of the diabetes patients screened about a year before and again after bariatric surgery suffered a progression of their diabetic retinopathy as compared with the 2% to 4% of the overall diabetes patients who develop retinopathy each year. The opposite impact might have been expected. If you have a condition such as diabetic retinopathy that is the result of the diabetes and the diabetes is in remission, it makes intuitive sense that the progression of the condition would be arrested. A few patients did appear to have regression of their eye disease most remained unchanged after surgery in the study. The patients who did progress had higher pre-surgical glucose levels and the greatest reduction in glucose levels afterward. A rapid reduction in blood glucose after the weight loss surgery-which is called “normoglycemic re-entry” or a temporary anemic episode after the weight loss surgery may actually be responsible for in the progression of preexisting diabetic retinopathy, but the mechanism is really unclear and requires a great deal of further investigation. One fact for sure-even if after weight loss surgery your blood glucose is normal, people with moderate background diabetic retinopathy prior to weight loss surgery should be monitored closely post-surgery for evidence of progression.

If you or someone you know has a question about the need for monitoring diabeticretinopathy even after weight loss surgery rendering blood sugar “normal,” please call The Eye Care & Surgery Center at 908-789-8999, visit The Eye Care & Surgery Center or facebook.com/eyecareandsurgerycenter to schedule an appointment.

With locations at 592 Springfield Avenue, Westfield, New Jersey 07090, 10 Mountain Boulevard, Warren, New Jersey 07059 and 517 Route One South, Suite 1100, Iselin, New Jersey 08830, The Eye Care & Surgery Center is a leading NJ eye care practice conveniently located for patients from throughout central and northern New Jersey.

LASIK Safer than Contacts?

At The Eye Care & SurgeryCenter in New Jersey, we provide eye care for a large population of contact lens wearers and are careful to provide proper selection, instruction and follow-up for our patients. We also provide laser eye surgery for the correction of nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism for patients from throughout the greater NY and NJ metro area.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just reported that Americans make nearly one million emergency visits to doctors’ offices and emergency rooms annually for eye infections. They indicate that most of these infections are related to improper use and care of contact lenses.

“When people contemplate having Laser Vision correction, one of the primary issues of concern is safety” shared Cornea, Cataract & LASIK Surgeon Joel Confino, M.D.  “These numbers from the CDC clearly indicate that the risk of eye infection related to contact lens wear is much greater than it is for LASIK.  We have endeavored to make the Laser Vision Experience as safe and comfortable as possible for our patients.”

If you or someone you know has questions about contact lenses, contact lens safety and contact lens problems or would like to learn more or schedule a free LASIK consultation please contact us at 800-504-1083, visit The Eye Care & Surgery Center or facebook.com/eyecareandsurgerycenter to schedule an appointment.

With locations at 592 Springfield Avenue, Westfield, New Jersey 07090, 10 Mountain Boulevard, Warren, New Jersey 07059 and 517 Route One South, Suite 1100, Iselin, New Jersey 08830, The Eye Care & Surgery Center is a leading NJ eye care practice conveniently located for patients from throughout central and northern New Jersey.

Diabetic Retinopathy & Cardiovascular Event Risk

The presence and severity of diabetic retinopathy may indicate the risk of future cardiovascular (CV) events such as heart attack or stroke. The relationship between diabetic retinopathy, its 4-year progression, and CV outcomes including CV death or nonfatal myocardial infarction or stroke was analyzed in participants in the Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) Trial who also participated in the ACCORD Eye Study. The diabetic retinopathy was classified as either none, mild, moderate, or severe and whether it was worsening was also graded. The hazard of CV death or nonfatal myocardial infarction or stroke increased by 38% for every category of change in retinopathy severity and steps of progression further raised the hazard. The researchers believe that both the severity of retinopathy and its progression are determinants of predisposition to CV outcomes.

The retina may provide an anatomical index of the effect of metabolic and hemodynamic factors on future CV outcomes.

If you or someone you know wishes to learn more about the presence and severity of diabetic retinopathy as an indicator of cardiovascular event risk can feel free to call The Eye Care & Surgery Center at 908-789-8999, visit The Eye Care & Surgery Center or facebook.com/eyecareandsurgerycenter to schedule an appointment.

With locations at 592 Springfield Avenue, Westfield, New Jersey 07090, 10 Mountain Boulevard, Warren, New Jersey 07059 and 517 Route One South, Suite 1100, Iselin, New Jersey 08830, The Eye Care & Surgery Center is a leading NJ eye care practice conveniently located for patients from throughout central and northern New Jersey.

Preventing Diabetic Eye Problems

The Eye Care & Surgery Center notes that Prevent Blindness America has designated November as National Diabetic Eye Disease Awareness Month. Diabetes affects more than 25 million people in the United States and is the leading cause of new cases of blindness in adults 20-74 years of age. Most disturbing is that almost 8 million people ages 40 and older have Diabetic Retinopathy with the potential for vision loss. Although there is no cure for diabetic eye disease, annual eye exams for diabetes patients are essential to help slow the progression of the disease.

Preventing Vision Loss from Diabetic Eye Disease & Retinopathy

The vision loss from diabetic retinopathy can be prevented if it's caught early and treated in time. More than one third of those diagnosed with diabetes do not adhere to vision care guidelines recommending a dilated eye exam every year. As part of Diabetic Eye Disease Awareness Month we are urging people with diabetes to have a dilated eye exam every year. The longer a person has diabetes, the greater his or her risk for developing diabetic retinopathy. However, diabetic retinopathy does not only affect people who have had diabetes for many years, it can also appear within the first year or two after the onset of the disease.

In addition to having regular eye examinations and testing at the direction of your eye doctor, patients can help to reduce the risk of developing diabetic eye disease  by not smoking, controlling their cholesterol and lipid profile and blood pressure, as well as working to eat a heart-healthy diet rich in fish, fruit and green leafy vegetables and exercising. 

If you or someone you know has diabetes or even elevated blood sugar levels they should work to prevent diabetic eye disease and problems with regular eye exams by calling The Eye Care & Surgery Center at 908-789-8999, visit The Eye Care & Surgery Center or facebook.com/eyecareandsurgerycenter to schedule an appointment.

With locations at 592 Springfield Avenue, Westfield, New Jersey 07090, 10 Mountain Boulevard, Warren, New Jersey 07059 and 517 Route One South, Suite 1100, Iselin, New Jersey 08830, The Eye Care & Surgery Center is a leading NJ eye care practice conveniently located for patients from throughout central and northern New Jersey.

Injections for Diabetic Macular Edema Treatment

The Eye Care & Surgery Center asks patients to have realistic expectations and understand the necessity of ongoing injection treatments for Diabetic Macular Edema in order to get the best vision and overall results. Researchers reporting in the British Journal of Ophthalmology shared helpful information about the importance of the VEGF inhibitor injection frequency in the treatment of diabetic macular edema. Diabetic Macular Edema is a common cause of vision loss in diabetics suffering from the effects of diabetic retinopathy. Today, we are fortunate to have a number of vascular endothelial growth inhibitor (VEGF) drugs for injection-such as Lucentis® and Eyelea®-that are helpful to treat and reverse the effects of Diabetic Macular Edema. The study confirmed that patients need to be patient as their ophthalmologists and retina specialists plan and schedule their examinations, testing and visits as sometime the best results can only be achieved multiple injections over some period of time. In general good long term results are achieved by about 4 months of injection treatment, but 20% of patients with persistent Diabetic Macular Edema at 12 months achieved a dry macula with considerable restoration of vision with sustained treatment through 24 months suggesting that persistent Diabetic Macular Edema at 4-12 months should not be used as a stopping criterion for treatment.

If you or someone you know would like to know more about the treatment of Diabetic Macular Edema with injections and the necessity of ongoing injection treatments, please feel free to call The Eye Care & Surgery Center at 908-789-8999, visit The Eye Care & Surgery Center or facebook.com/eyecareandsurgerycenter to schedule an appointment.

With locations at 592 Springfield Avenue, Westfield, New Jersey 07090, 10 Mountain Boulevard, Warren, New Jersey 07059 and 517 Route One South, Suite 1100, Iselin, New Jersey 08830, The Eye Care & Surgery Center is a leading NJ eye care practice conveniently located for patients from throughout central and northern New Jersey.

“All in the Family” LASIK

After seeing how successful my wife’s and daughter’s LASIK treatment was, I decided I also wanted the freedom of not having to wear glasses.  I traveled over 100 miles to have Dr. Confino perform this surgery.  The care, concern and total professionalism of the entire staff and the complete success of my surgery would allow me to recommend anyone who is considering LASER correction, not to hesitate to do so.

Robert B.

Halloween Contact Lens Safety

The Eye Care & Surgery Center advises patients to use caution this Halloween in choosing decorative eye colorchanging contact lenses as part of their costume selections. Turning your eye color from blue to some far out appearance or ghoulish look by using over-the-counter, decorative contact lenses can be a good source of Halloween fun, BUT it can also lead to serious vision-threatening problems. The Food and Drug Administration, regulates all contact lenses as medical devices that require a prescription and proper fitting by an eye care professional. Thus, even someone with perfect vision would still require an eye exam and a prescription in order to wear any kind of contacts, including cosmetic lenses.

Risk & Danger of Non PrescriptionCosmetic Contact Lenses

Some websites advertise no prescription decorative contacts as if they were fashion accessories or toys with fanciful, playful packaging in order to attract teens and young adults, especially girls. The problem is not that people use decorative, noncorrective contacts, but that they buy the devices without a prescription through unlicensed vendors on the Internet or at flea markets and specialty shops. The purchasers and users of these over-the-counter contact lenses faces a huge risk including scratched corneas or corneal abrasion, “pink eye” conjunctivitis, infection such as corneal keratitis and corneal ulcer-the latter exposing the wearer to blinding consequences.

The safe and effective use of contact lenses-whether decorative or not-requires proper fitting and education about their care to prevent the potential for serious eye  problems from becoming a reality. If you or a friend would like to learn more about contact lenses of any type including decorative non prescription contacts please The Eye Care & Surgery Center at 908-789-8999, visit The Eye Care & Surgery Center or facebook.com/eyecareandsurgerycenter to schedule an appointment.

With locations at 592 Springfield Avenue, Westfield, New Jersey 07090, 10 Mountain Boulevard, Warren, New Jersey 07059 and 517 Route One South, Suite 1100, Iselin, New Jersey 08830, The Eye Care & Surgery Center is a leading NJ eye care practice conveniently located for patients from throughout central and northern New Jersey.