Styes are bacterial infections that lead to the obstruction of oil producing glands around the eyelashes or eyelids. Styes are seen as small bumps on the eyelids. Styes (also called "sty") are usually harmless and will go away after several days on their own as your body fights the infection. There are some cases where surgical draining of the stye or the application of antibiotic drops may be required.

Diabetes can play havoc with your eyes, and sometimes there are no early sumptoms. So you may have no idea anything is wrong until your eyesight is in danger.

Here are the main eye problems that can be caused, or made worse, by diabetes.

Dangers of Cataracts

If the whites of one or both of your toddler's eyes and the lower rim of his eyelids are red, chances are he has an infection called conjunctivitis, also known as pinkeye or red-eye. The infection occurs when a virus, some bacteria, an allergen, or some other substance inflames the transparent membrane covering the white of the eyes and the inside of the eyelids (the conjunctiva). As your toddler's system tries to fight the infection, his eyes may tear or become crusty. It's important that you treat the infection promptly, so call your child's doctor as soon as you notice these symptoms. These are often described as a clouding of the lens of the eye. They are treatable by surgery in most cases.

Dangers of Glaucoma

Our eyes are largely made up of fluid, and when the pressure of that fluid builds up too much inside the eye, you have glaucoma. Left untreated, it can damage the optic nerves, and even lead to blindness.

Diabetic retinopathy

Lining the back of our eyes is light-sensitive tissue known as the retina. The retina contains very small blood vessels that can be damaged by diabetic retinopathy. Sometimes there are symptoms such as blurred vision, but often you won't even know anything is wrong until the condition is well advanced. In the worse case, it leads to blindness.

Early detection is the key to battling all of these conditions, and the best diagnostic tool available is the dilated eye examination. This is a test in which special eye drops temporarily enlarge your pupils, allowing the doctor to see the back of your eyes. This test (which is painless) can detect cataracts, glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy in their early, treatable stages.

Eyesight is precious, so if you have diabetes do yourself a favor and make an appointment for your dilated eye examination. And then do it again every year from now on.

What is Pink Eye?

Pink eye results in redness, irritation, or inflammation of the conjunctiva. The conjunctiva usually reacts to bacteria, viruses, allergy causing agents, irritants, or diseases of other parts of the body. Viral Conjunctivitis or contagious pink eye is usually caused by viruses that spread from other different ailments like colds, sore throats, respiratory infections and others.