Diabetes often affects vision by causing cataracts and, most seriously, diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy, which causes damage to the blood vessels of the retina, affects up to 20 percent of diabetics and can cause severe loss of vision, sometimes resulting in blindness.

Now, through the use of vitreous surgery and photocoagulation laser surgery, loss of vision due to diabetic retinopathy is largely preventable.

At the Cottage Eye and Laser Center, laser surgery is used to destroy or inhibit the growth of abnormal retinal blood vessels, to stop bleeding due to injury, and to repair torn retinas. Our lasers, used in conjunction with an indirect laser ophthalmoscope, makes possible state-of-the-art treatment of diseases such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.