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A DIABETES patient is calling on fellow sufferers not to avoid getting their eyes checked after he lost his vision. Conor Lennon was diagnosed with diabetes when he was young, after suffering the tell-tale symptoms such as losing weight and needing to wee much more often. And although most sufferers are aware of their risk of diabetic retinopathy, an eye condition that can cause vision loss and blindness, Conor, from Louth , confessed he never went to any of his appointments for his sight.

The 34-year-old dad admitted: “I had normal sight until the first two months of Covid [lockdowns]. “Then I was putting together a trampoline and I must have put too much pressure on to my eyes, and it burst a load of blood vessels and that was the turning point. “I never went to a screening in the 20 plus years of my diabetes.



“So if they had caught this ten years ago, and I’d had the laser treatment, I’d be fine, I’d have no problems." “I’m pushing that every diabetic should go to the retina screening and if they do that, 99.9 per cent of the time there’s going to be no long-lasting problems.

” There are over 225,000 people in Ireland with diabetes and one in 20 are at risk of vision loss. The HSE provides a free yearly eye check-up, or every two years if the patient has a clean bill of eye health. Conor, who is dad to nine-year-old Noah, has had laser surgery since his diagnosis in the hope of keeping what little sight he has left.

He has no vision in his right eye an.

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