You are a diabetic. However, you don’t stop yourself from indulging in a heavy meal of double cheese pizza, sweetened beverages and creamy cakes. Do you hear a cry? Is it your heart crying out for help? Take care of your heart…before it’s too late!
Not only the heart, your other body organs also may need help, if you do not take care of your blood sugar levels. In long term, diabetes may affect every system of the body. Complications of diabetes are silent growers that do not show up until they are in the advanced stage. Few target organs of diabetes are
Heart and blood vessels
Kidney
Eyes
Gums
Nerves
Feet
The complications are due to high glucose, high blood-pressure and high fat deposit that blocks or narrows blood vessels and cut the supply of blood to vital organs. The functions of these organs may deteriorate gradually. Subsequently, the vital organs may stop working and succumb to the complications.
Diabetic Complications Of Heart And Brain
Diabetics have an increased risk of cardiovascular or heart disease and stroke when compared to their healthy peers. The root cause is narrowing of blood vessels. High blood sugar in diabetes accelerates the deposition of fatty substance on the walls of the blood vessels. The deposits cause narrowing of the blood vessels and interfere with the blood flow. Over time, the deposits may completely cut off the blood supply to an organ.
You may suffer a heart attack, if the blood vessels supplying your heart get partially or completely blocked. If the blood vessels supplying to the brain are involved, it can even lead to a stroke, a condition where the brain cells begin to die because of inadequate blood supply. As a diabetic, you should know the warning signs of heart attack and stroke to identify it, if it’s just round the corner.
Warning Signs Of Heart Attack
Before actually suffering from a major heart-attack few signs that warns you are:
- Pain / discomfort in the chest
- Pain in arms, jaws, neck, and back
- Sweating
- Shortness of breath or gasping
- Nausea
- Stomach pain
- Light-headedness
You may or may not experience these signs. Warning signs may come and disappear sending a strong future warning.
Warning Signs Of Stroke
Warning signs of stroke develop suddenly, therefore it is very important to know the basic warning signals.
- Difficulty in talking and understanding
- Numbness on one side of the body
- Difficulty in walking and loss of body balance
- Dizziness
- Either trouble seeing or double vision
- Sudden severe headache
Presence of any of these signs should ring an alarm of impending stroke.
It is not all that gloomy as it sounds. Strictly following few simple rules will help you stay away from the intricate effects of cardiovascular disease.
- Consuming more fibrous foods like grains, vegetables, and fruits will help you maintain your lipid / cholesterol level.
- Prefer foods which are low in fats, sugar and salt.
- Following strict low-glucose diet is very essential to keep blood sugar levels in control. Check your blood glucose level frequently.
- Having low cholesterol diet is very important, which helps you maintain your blood-pressure below 130/80.
- Maintain a healthy weight.
- Quit smoking.
- Strictly follow the prescribed medicine and consult your physician frequently.
- Consult your physician whether you can take an aspirin every day as it helps to reduce the risk of heart disease.
Diabetic Neuropathies
If your diabetes is untreated, the nervous system may get severely affected. Diabetic neuropathy is temporary or permanent damage to your nerve caused by prolonged diabetes. High blood sugar, over a period of time, causes severe damage in the blood vessel that supplies the nerves with oxygen and other essential nutrients. Damage to the nerves might result in numbness, pain or tingling feeling in their legs, and arms, indigestion, diarrhea or constipation, nausea, lose of sense, and weakness while standing for a long time. Neuropathy may affect the peripheral organs like the hand, legs, toes, and feet as well as the internal organs like digestive system, heart etc. In order to avoid nerves damage due to diabetes, always make sure that you maintain your blood glucose level close to normal.
Eye Problems
Your eye is one of the soft targets of diabetes. Eye problem in diabetic patient refers to a group of eye diseases. Due to high blood glucose and high blood pressure for a long time, the tiny blood vessels of the eyes get swollen, weakened and clogged, which results in permanent damage of vision of one or both the eyes. Damage to your eyes can be noticed if you have one or more of these signs:
- Double or blurred vision
- Pain in one or both the eyes
- Blank or floating spots
- Rigs or flashing lights
- Difficulty in seeing things in the corner of the eyes
Another eye complication in diabetic patient is cataract, where the vision is unclear due to the formation of a cloud over the lens of your eyes, which can be removed by a simple surgery.
Diabetic patients can keep away the many eye problems by maintaining their blood glucose level and having their eye check atleast once a year.
Feet Problems
Diabetic patients are always advised to take good care of their feet. Neuropathy and damage blood vessel may increase the risk of foot ulcer. It is estimated that about 15% of the diabetic patient suffer from foot ulcers.
Experiencing pain in the legs is very common if you are a diabetic patient. This happens when the blood vessels that supplies blood to your legs get narrowed by fat deposit and your leg is deprived of enough blood supply. You might also feel numbness and tingling feeling. To avoid feet problems make sure that you keep your feet clean, regularly check for cuts, sores, bruises, and infections, check your blood glucose level, maintain your cholesterol level to normal, consult your physician about taking aspirin everyday and be physically active.
Kidney Problems
Kidneys are another victim of the diabetic complications. The main function of kidney is to filter body wastes, but diabetes completely damages this filtering mechanism. High blood pressure in diabetic patient is the major cause of kidney complications and as the kidney disease progresses the blood pressure increases making the condition even worse. Damage to kidney shows no signs until the last stage. Few might experience inadequate sleep, loss of appetite, stomach upset, weakness and failure to concentrate.
Deterioration of the kidney function can be slowed down by treatment when diagnosed early. Maintaining your blood pressure and blood glucose close to normal with medications helps to slow down the process of kidney damage. Less protein diet and anti-hypertensive drugs also helps in slowing the process of kidney damage.
Sexual And Urologic Problems
Sexual and urological problems are common as people age. Having diabetes, in addition, means an early onset of these conditions. High glucose level damages the blood vessels and the nerves in these regions. Males may experience erection and ejaculation problems, and females may have vaginal dryness, painful intercourse and no sexual desire. Urinary tract infection is very common in diabetic patients affecting over 50% of diabetic patients. The most common one is bladder problem which results in frequent and sudden urge to urinate, leakage of urine without warning, and urine retention where the nerve fails to convey that the bladder is full and it’s time to urinate. Maintaining normal blood glucose level helps in preventing sexual or urological problems.
Teeth And Gum Problems
Unclean teeth are the best dwelling place for germs which forms a thick film on your teeth, what more is required for the germs than a blood with increased glucose level, which is more vulnerable to infections. Germs start growing on your gums making it red and sore which bleeds during brushing. In severe cases, your gums might pull back exposing a lengthy tooth. Smoking worsens the incidence of teeth and gum infection. Other minor symptoms include bad breath, sensitive teeth, different feeling while biting or chewing food.
Following few basic rules to keep your teeth and gums healthy might help avoiding worsening them
- Brush your teeth after every meal
- Use a soft brush
- Visit your dentist regularly
- Use dental floss
Hypoglycemia
You must be wondering that how diabetes, a condition with high glucose level is associated with hypoglycemia – a condition where the blood glucose level is below normal. Hypoglycemia can be caused by the side-effects of diabetic medications which increases the level of insulin in blood and thereby decreasing the amount of glucose in blood. Skipping your meals or doing more than usual physical activity cause hypoglycemia.
You may have hypoglycemia or low blood sugar if you experience any of these symptoms:
- Sweating
- Nervousness
- Dizziness
- Confusion
- Difficulty in talking
- Hunger
- Shakiness
- Anxiety
- Weakness and sleepiness
- Crying out nightmares
- Wet bed due to perspiration
- Tired and confused after waking up
To prevent hypoglycemia, it is very important that you strictly follow diabetic medications in proper time and dose. Eating or drinking carbohydrate rich food might be of instant help. You may list out the diabetic medicines that cause hypoglycemia and avoid them. Along with this follow a strict diet plan and do required physical activity only.
Diabetic Ketoacidosis
Diabetic ketoacidosis is a life-threatening condition where the body starts burning fat for energy despite the presence of large amount of glucose in the blood. This is due to inadequate insulin in diabetic patients. The by-product of fat breakdown is acidic ketones, which gets accumulated in the body. High level of ketones proves to be poisonous. Diabetic ketoacidosis could be the first symptom in patients who are undiagnosed for diabetes and it might also be signaling the need for insulin in already diagnosed patients. Ketoacidosis is common in patients with Type-I diabetes and rare in Type-II diabetes. Few common symptoms are:
- Nausea
- Stomach pain
- Bad breath
- Dryness of skin and mouth
- Rapid and deep breathing
- Stiffening of muscles
- Frequent urination
Contact your physician in case you experience any of these symptoms. Keeping a track of your urine ketoacidosis is very important along with checking your glucose level.
Non-Ketotic Hyperosmolar Syndrome
Non-ketotic hyperosmolar syndrome is a grave disease affecting persons with both Type-I and Type-2 diabetes, but is found to be more common in Type-2 patients. The main cause is high level of glucose without the presence of ketones, which the body tries to pass out through frequent urination. After a period of time the urine becomes dark. Few signs that warn you are:
- Increased thirst
- Dry mouth and dry skin which does not sweat
- High body temperature
- Loss of vision
- Confusion and sleepiness
- Weakness
- Weight loss and lethargy
- Hallucination and
- Importantly increased blood glucose level
This condition may also develop due to previous infections, glucose-tolerance lowering medicines and other severe illness. The best way to keep non-ketotic hyperosmolar disease away is to follow your glucose level often. As the symptom includes frequent urination it is very important that the person drink lots of water to avoid dehydration.
If you thought that preventing complications of diabetes was impossible, then think again; because the word itself says that I m possible. It just needs a will power to stay healthy!
