Treatment, which depends largely on the type of diabetic retinopathy you have and how severe it is, is geared to slowing or stopping the progression.
Early diabetic retinopathy
If you have mild or moderate nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy, you might not need treatment right away. However, your eye doctor will closely monitor your eyes to determine when you might need treatment.
Work with your diabetes doctor (endocrinologist) to determine if there are ways to improve your diabetes management. When diabetic retinopathy is mild or moderate, good blood sugar control can usually slow the progression.
Advanced diabetic retinopathy
If you have proliferative diabetic retinopathy or macular edema, you'll need prompt treatment. Depending on the specific problems with your retina, options might include:
Injecting medications into the eye. These medications, called vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitors, are injected into the vitreous of the eye. They help stop growth of new blood vessels and decrease fluid buildup.
Two drugs are approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of diabetic macular edema — ranibizumab (Lucentis) and aflibercept (Eylea). A third drug, bevacizumab (Avastin), can be used off-label for the treatment of diabetic macular edema.
These drugs are injected using topical anesthesia. The injections can cause mild discomfort, such as burning, tearing or pain, for 24 hours after the injection. Possible side effects include a buildup of pressure in the eye and infection.
These injections will need to be repeated. In some cases, the medication is used with photocoagulation.
Photocoagulation. This laser treatment, also known as focal laser treatment, can stop or slow the leakage of blood and fluid in the eye. During the procedure, leaks from abnormal blood vessels are treated with laser burns.
Focal laser treatment is usually done in your doctor's office or eye clinic in a single session. If you had blurred vision from macular edema before surgery, the treatment might not return your vision to normal, but it's likely to reduce the chance of the macular edema worsening.
Panretinal photocoagulation. This laser treatment, also known as scatter laser treatment, can shrink the abnormal blood vessels. During the procedure, the areas of the retina away from the macula are treated with scattered laser burns. The burns cause the abnormal new blood vessels to shrink and scar.
It's usually done in your doctor's office or eye clinic in two or more sessions. Your vision will be blurry for about a day after the procedure. Some loss of peripheral vision or night vision after the procedure is possible.
Vitrectomy. This procedure uses a tiny incision in your eye to remove blood from the middle of the eye (vitreous) as well as scar tissue that's tugging on the retina. It's done in a surgery center or hospital using local or general anesthesia.
While treatment can slow or stop the progression of diabetic retinopathy, it's not a cure. Because diabetes is a lifelong condition, future retinal damage and vision loss are still possible.
