I would venture to say that no one sees more diabetics than ophthalmologists, except endocrinologists and primary care physicians. Mostly because every diagnosed diabetic needs at least an annual eye exam. And there are plenty of cases where a diabetic is seen in our clinic far more than their own primary care doctor, sometimes as often as every few weeks.
But then there's the population of people who don't recognize their own diabetes who present to an eye doctor first when things start going down hill. On more than one occasion, I have seen a patient come into the clinic with some acute vision change. I ask them about any history of diabetes and they claim they had it at one time, but oh it has been controlled with diet ever since their second year of disease, fifteen years ago. And then I ask them who manages their diabetes. Well, no one, they might say. In some cases this is because they have failed to present to any primary care doctor on a routine basis. But in others, there is a failure of the primary care physician to keep a check on things.
Plain scary. If I had diabetes that was "diet controlled," I would sure as hell still want to know on a fairly routine basis if anything had changed.
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