Symptoms:

Most often, diabetic retinopathy has no symptoms until the damage to your eyes is severe.

Symptoms of diabetic retinopathy include:

• Blurred vision and slow vision loss over time
• Floaters
• Shadows or missing areas of vision
• Trouble seeing at night

Many people with early diabetic retinopathy have no symptoms before major bleeding occurs in the eye. This is why everyone with diabetes should have regular eye exams.

Signs and tests:

The health care provider can diagnose diabetic retinopathy by dilating your pupils with eye drops and then carefully examining the retina. A retinal photography or fluorescein angiography test may also be used.

If you have nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy, your health care provider may see:

• Blood vessels in the eye that are larger in certain spots (called microaneurysms)
• Blood vessels that are blocked
• Small amounts of bleeding (retinal hemorrhages) and fluid leaking into the retina

If you have proliferative retinopathy, your health care provider may see:

• New blood vessels starting to grow in the eye that are fragile and can bleed
• Small scars developing on the retina and in other parts of the eye (the vitreous)