Background retinopathy is an early stage of retinal damage when little capillary in the retina program signs of damage that can result from diabetes.
If you have actually been detected with background diabetic retinopathy, your health team will keep monitoring you to spot any progression of retinopathy and will recommend any treatment that might assist to prevent retinopathy from getting worse.
What to Expect If I Have Background Retinopathy?
Retinopathy is a typical condition among people with diabetes and needn’t constantly be a sign that your diabetes is badly managed.
If you have background retinopathy, it is an early indication that your diabetes has actually lead to some damage of the small blood vessels of your retina.
This does not usually result in instant sight issues but it means that if retinopathy develops to the next stage, it is necessary that this is spotted and treated early enough to avoid sight problems occurring.
Other concern is “will you go blind if have background retinopathy?” Retinopathy progression appears to follow different patterns. Some patients develop leakage (such as macular oedema), and others develop capillary closure (which likewise causes loss of sight, see proliferative and pre-proliferative).
What Is Background Diabetic Retinopathy?
Background retinopathy is stated to take place if you have established microaneurysms on your retina. Microaneurysms are when there is a swelling of the blood vessels (extremely little capillary) that feed the retina.
The presence of reasonably little numbers of microaneurysms will not usually cause problems with vision. If the level of retinopathy is able to grow more significantly, however, this is more likely to provide a risk to your vision.
Retinopathy can be treated, so it is essential that you go to retinopathy screening visits.
Symptoms of Background Retinopathy
The signs of background retinopathy are typically only obvious through a retinal screening check, where a photo is taken of your retina.
How Common Is Background Retinopathy?
Some kind of retinopathy prevails in people with diabetes. A research study performed in 2002 by the Royal Liverpool University Hospital examined 831 patients with type 1 diabetes and 7,231 people with type 2 diabetes and found the list below outcomes:
- 45.7% of people with type 1 diabetes had some kind of retinopathy
- 25.3% of people with type 2 diabetes had some type of retinopathy
It is worth keeping in mind that the greater incidence of retinopathy in people with type 1 diabetes is affected by these patients having actually lived with diabetes for a substantially longer time period than people with type 2 diabetes.