Health professionals across the country are seeing spikes in the numbers of patients suffering from diabetes. This is troublesome for a number of reasons and the health of your eyesight is one of them. In the United States, diabetes is the number one cause of blindness in adults. I'm not saying that everyone with diabetes will eventually go blind but it should be cause of enough to schedule a visit to your eye doctor.

As a sufferer of diabetes, it should be your everyday goal of keeping all of your vision problems minor and see a doctor right away if you notice something becoming more serious. It doesn't mean your sight will be affected, but diabetes put you at a higher risk. Here are some of the more common complications that affect the eyes due to diabetes than can result in loss of sight:

• Dry eyes - Dry eyes occurs why your tear glands are not able to produce enough tears to properly lubricate your eyes. This condition is always uncomfortable with symptoms of your eyes itching, burning, and simply annoying. Eye specialists recommend sleeping with a humidifier or using artificial tears whenever you feel your eyes becoming too dry. In serious cases, surgery is required.

• Tearing - The opposite of dry eyes are eyes that tear up too much or too easily. Often times it occurs due to being overly sensitive to light, wind, or temperature changes. Most times shielding your eyes with glasses or sunglasses can fix the problem. Tearing can also be a sign of something more serious such as an eye infection or blocked tear duct.

• Cataracts - When you suffer from a cataract problem, your eyes get a cloudy almost milky covering over the lens of the eye. Without the full amount of light passing through your eyes, your vision suffers greatly sometimes to the point of total vision loss. These form slowly over time and come with no pain, redness or tearing. Most of the time, cataracts are small enough not to affect your vision but the ones that do can normally removed through surgery.

• Retinal disorders - The thin lining on the back of your eye is called the retina and its function is to collect all of the visual images, passing them then to the brain. A disorder in your retina will stop this transfer of images. Some of these disorders include problems such as age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, or retinal detachment. It is critical to your vision health that any of these problems are diagnosed and treated early on.

• Glaucoma - Glaucoma develops in the eye when there is too much fluid pressure from the inside. It is normally caused by watery fluid that flows between the cornea and the lens of the eye becomes blocked. This sometimes serious condition can lead to permanent vision loss and blindness if not treated in time. Since glaucoma has no real early symptoms or pain, schedule an appointment to see an eye doctor for a checkup to be on the safe side. They can recommend treatments like prescription eye drops, oral medications, or surgery.