The symptoms of diabetes

People who suffer from diabetes need to take insulin injections everyday. They have to be aware of the complications if they fail to apply their routine in controlling their blood sugar. Constant consciousness and willpower on deciding what they do and what they eat is a must, such as what kind of food to eat, how much food to eat, how many times to eat, exercise or sleep, and when to check their blood sugar level.

Life for people with diabetes is fraught with dos and don’ts. You might say, life for everyone is like that, but these people face consequences that may be fatal to their health, especially people with type 1 diabetes or juvenile diabetes, because they’ve had this disease for longer. This type of diabetes is often caused by the obliteration of beta cells that produce insulin by an autoimmune process. It is diagnosed as early as childhood up to young adulthood. Unlike type 2 diabetes that can still be prevented, juvenile diabetes cannot.

Juvenile diabetes is treated by regular injections of insulin with thorough observation of blood sugar levels. If insulin injections are stopped, diabetic coma can occur and this may cause death. Aside from regular insulin injections and meticulous monitoring of blood sugar, it’s also very important to make good food choices and to exercise regularly. Though applying changes in lifestyle cannot reverse the disease, it can help in reducing the possible complications that may happen.

There’s no end to treating juvenile diabetes. Taking extra care with diet, exercise, and medications doesn’t stop a person with juvenile diabetes from doing most activities, but the knowledge of always having a disease also has a psychological impact. There’s still an upside, though. They appreciate the gift of good health more than healthier people do, and they live healthily, as all of us should.

If the body is unable to regulate the glucose levels in the next two or three hours after a meal, then that person starts to display symptoms of diabetes and is diagnosed as diabetic. The simplest test to detect diabetes is performed at the doctor’s office: patients will be given a sugar-rich drink and if their glucose surpasses 200 mg/ml then they are diagnosed with diabetes. Having constant high blood sugar levels in the body has lots of negative consequences in the long run, such as kidney failure, heart attack, stroke, nerve problems or blindness for example.

However, being diagnosed with diabetes does not necessarily imply that a person will be dealing with these health issues, especially if he makes a few modifications in his lifestyle. For starters, the diabetic needs to be more careful about what and when he eats. Since the high blood sugar levels are common immediately after eating, then he should have smaller meals throughout the day.

At the same time, he is to avoid carbonated drinks or carbohydrate rich foods, as these are known aliments to increase the glucose levels. Lastly, since stress is also one of factors that contribute to increased sugar levels, it is advisable that the diabetic individual dedicates some time for hobbies and activities he enjoys.

Sugar is seen as one of the main source of energy for the body, as it is the result of foods processed by the digestive system. Transporting the energy to all tissues and organs is done with the help of insulin. In a nutshell, insulin absorbs the glucose cells and transports them across the body. While the role of the hormone is to fuel muscles, fat tissues and blood cells, there is also a certain amount of sugar that it is stored in the liver. The glucose from the liver is usually processed and transformed into glycogen, which can be used later on.

In general, the pancreas tends to secrete small amounts of insulin into the bloodstream all the time. However, since this hormone is the body’s response to high glycemia, after meals the amount produced is considerably higher. Because the insulin is dependent on sugar, it is only normal that the levels the hormone found in the bloodstream to decrease, as the sugar level drop.

In general, developing diabetes type I can happen over a rather short period and the medical world has been unable to find a prevention method so far. This form of diabetes implies serious imbalances of glycemia in the blood stream, inequities that reside from the body’s incapacity to absorb insulin properly. Although it is commonly diagnosed during childhood and it is also known as juvenile diabetes, people should keep in mind that this not always a rule written in stone. Since before diagnosis most people feel completely healthy and in shape, in some cases its symptoms can be confused with the diabetes type 2.

Besides the aforementioned major symptoms, another sign associated with type I diabetes is lack of energy. The problem with constant tiredness is that, even though it is one of the first symptoms to appear due to problematic blood sugar levels, it is also the first one to be ignored by diabetes suspects. The further sign that accompanies diabetes type I results from the increased thirst. Because the fluids are diverted from all parts of the body, including the eyes, one should expect to experience episodes of blurred vision. Lastly, even though that person starts eating and drinking more than usual, it seems that he is losing weight.