Diabetic retinopathy doubts

Good morning
I am doing a job for a master and I would like you to help me.
How long have it taken to diagnose retinopathy since you have diabetes?Is it that the retinopathy phase operates?
Do they treat you with something before the laser?
The treatment with Laser when they have done it from the diagnosis, it is painless, annoying, public or private hospital, has you been effective or have had to return after how long?
I feel so many questions, but if you could clarify some I would be phenomenal.
Thank you very much and good weekend.

I'm afraid you have a wrong concept of RD and laser.It is very difficult to answer the questions you ask, maybe that's why nobody has done it.I'll try
1.- The retina is affected according to risk factors among which, of course, the years of evolution of the disease are included, but also and decisively, of the patient's age at the beginning of the disease (noA 15 -year -old artery is the same as another of 50), and above all things, of the average glycemia control throughout life.Depending on these factors, and others less important but not despicable, injuries take more or less to present, and the evolution towards more serious forms is more or less fast.
2.- The RD is not operated.Retinal complications of diabetes are operated.Generally, when these phases are reached, any procedure is used, a bit to the desperate one.The foundation of the treatment is to prevent these phases from reaching, and that can be achieved, treating little advanced injuries before they become.The laser does not cure, it is not an antibiotic that eliminates any trait of disease.It must be applied as many times as necessary to coagulate the lesions and prevent its growth (in reality the treatment is called lasercoagulation) (if we had to heal sores on the skin with a red iron, that would not prevent new sores would come out, right?).
3.- Does it hurt? It depends on the intensity to be used based on the importance and location of the lesion.I advise you to review all the answers I have given to concrete questions of patients, and that they are in this forum.Maybe so you can get a closer idea of ​​what this means

I would like to contribute my experience, in this case with my mother, a 68 -year -old lady, diabetics and diagnosed among other RD complications.In his case, he spent many years without being properly treating diabetes, and was diagnosed because he simply saw.They treated us in the SS, and on a first visit they already saw the damage, the first thing they did was apply some injections directly into the eyeball and quote it for laser a few days later.They have alternated injections and laser successively.A posteriori they scheduled a cataract operation, and then reviewed again and have continued with the injections and the laser with some regularity.
The injections are annoying, and the laser also causes some discomfort, and you are about 24 hours with the pupil very dilated and without seeing just.
The damage is there, the vision has not recovered 100% but has improved the quality of life.
I hope I have helped you.

So laser treatment and injections do not recover vision?Is it only not to worsen retinopathy?
The vision improved only by removing the cataracts?

And another question @Oftalmologo,
What is the difference between non -proliferative and proliferative retinopathy?Only the degree of affectation or are they different diseases?

Carmenchu's experience is very demonstrative and illustrates quite well what this problem consists of.It is simply feasible to reach very advanced stages of the disease without realizing it.Probably his mother -in -law, blamed the low vision of cataracts, inherent at these ages, but also the retinopathy had wreaked havoc.The injections that applied to him were antiangiogenic that control the problem temporarily.It was at that time of transitory improvement, when they applied the laser, which is the truly resolutive treatment, since it destroys the sick retina, and prevents greater complications from being achieved.Of course, what provided vision improvement was the intervention of cataracts, since the damage caused by retinopathy is completely irreversible, and with this I also answer (I hope) to the first question of Regina.As for the second, the RDNP (non -proliferative) and the RDP (proliferative), are two phases, the second much more serious, of the same disease.They are not different diseases.In the RDP, and before the situation of lack of oxygen (anoxia), due to deterioration of the blood vessels caused by diabetes, the organism creates new blood vessels (neovosses), which have a very fragile and pathological structure, so they causerepetition hemorrhages and the formation of a fibrous tissue that serves as a livelihood, which ends up tracing the retina and detaching it.The treatment of a RDP is to prevent it from being installed, treating all ischemic territories (lacking oxygen), with laser in the face of the absolute security that these neovants will occur.

Thank you very much for the explanation, @ophthalmologist.We only have good control and frequent review to treat it in time.