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Symptoms of Diabetic retinopathy

Diabetic retinopathy is entirely painless but often causes sudden blindness. It does this when the fragile new blood vessels bleed into the vitreous gel of the eye, obscuring vision by a dark cloud. This blood may slowly be absorbed, so that after a variable period of weeks or months vision may be restored.

Unfortunately, severe bleeding into the vitreous may provide a path along which new blood vessels and fibrous tissue can grow forward into the gel. This is a serious matter because these fibrous strands can contract and pull off the retina – a form of retinal detachment that is difficult to correct. In this case the blindness, although not entirely beyond repair, may be permanent.

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