How to Get Through Your Day With DME

If your eyesight has been impacted by diabetic macular edema, these tips from vision specialists can help make everyday tasks easier.

Diabetic macular edema (DME) can cause vision loss including blurriness, distortion, difficulty seeing colors, and more that impacts your life in many ways. What symptoms you experience and how severe they are can differ by individual. If your symptoms—or those of a loved one with DME—have you wondering how to get through the day with this condition, these tips from experts can help you navigate your routine with more ease and enjoyment.

How a Low Vision Specialist Can Help

So much of life depends on vision, that losing vision or having vision changes from DME can “really have a meaningful impact. There are effective treatment options for DME that can help maintain or even improve vision—including anti-VEGF medication injections into the eye, laser treatment, or surgery—but something called low vision services can also assist. These services, under the direction of a low vision specialist, can help you adapt your daily environment to your vision. Let’s look at some tips from experts on how to navigate DME vision loss.

Start Your Morning on the Right Foot

You wake up and get out of bed. How can you do so safely if your vision is impacted by DME? One tip is to arrange furniture so there is a clear path between your bed and wherever you’re headed next—likely the bathroom. Bright lighting in the room (choose an LED bulb with 2,000 lumens—roughly a 150-watt incandescent bulb—or higher) is also important to help you safely move around once you’re up.

Strategically Use Color as a Guide

Contrasting colors—those that are the opposite on the color wheel, like yellow/purple, red/green, orange/blue—can help define objects by heightening colors that might be washed out by DME, our experts say. For example, choose a throw rug in contrasting color to the tone of your floor to help you judge depth while getting ready in the morning, Organize your closet with contrasting color hangers to better see the clothes you want to wear each day, or use cutting boards in colors that contrast with vegetables and meats you’re preparing for safer slicing.

Lean Into Technology to Assist

Assistive technology can also be an effective way to get ready in the morning with DME. A handheld color identifier device can help you pick out clothes or match outfits.

Get Smart in the Kitchen

When navigating cooking with DME, organization is key, overnight oats or hard-boiling eggs—is a great idea in these situations,”. Some appliances can now incorporate smart technology, too, like coffee machines that can start on a timer set the night before. Old-school assists are still useful in the kitchen—like having raised bump dots on your appliances so you can feel them with your fingertips. “You can also use tactile measuring cups to add the right amount of coffee and tea or baking mix to your recipes.

Improve Your Commute

If your vision loss precludes you from driving, rideshare services, carpooling, and public transportation are all options. “Also, public transportation, depending on the city, may have apps that can be converted to auditory format by accessibility options built into the phone,”. A handheld magnifier can also assist with reading street signs as you continue your way to the office. Also, consider using voice recognition devices to check the day’s weather, search the web for the latest news, or even lock the front door as you leave the house.

Make Office Life Easier

Once at work, assistive devices like screen readers for computers, large print keyboards, and reading scanners like the OrCam Read can be a big help. Other work-related ideas? With Windows computers, Ease of Access (see how at this link) provides a narrator and magnifier. For Apple products, multiple accessibility tools assist in numerous ways (find more at this link). Using Zoom or Microsoft Teams to work from home might be another solution.

Curl Up With a Good Book

Whether you like winding down with bedtime reading or have to read up for work, how to do so with DME vision loss? With the help of assistive devices like an assistive magnifying glass. They can help you see the text on regular-size print books and screens. Or use the functions on the screens themselves.