Understand Diabetes

One of the longer term complications of diabetes is nerve damage where feeling in the lower limb is lost. Try to imagine what happens if you can’t feel your feet and you sprain your ankle. As you can’t feel it, imagine what happens as you keep walking on that sprained ankle. This is what can happen in diabetes and is known as Charcot’s foot (or Charcot’s neuroarthropathy).

Essentially what happens in Charcot’s foot is that the ability to feel pain is lost or impaired (due to the diabetic nerve damage). The muscles can then loose their ability to properly support the foot. Then minor trauma (eg sprains or stress fracture) to the foot go undetected and no treatment is given. Continued walking on the foot further increases the damage.

Usually the first sign is that the foot is warm and swollen and no pain will be present. A deformity then will start to develop if no treatment is provided.

Prevention of further joint destruction and foot deformity is the main aim in treatment. Total rest is essential and support is needed to stabilise the damaged area. Most cases will be put in a plaster or fibreglass cast called a ‘total contact cast‘ to relieve pressure and to prevent further deformity. This can take up to 6-9 months to heal properly. A drug (called a bisphosphonate) have been shown to be useful in many cases.

After the Charcot foot has healed then specialized footwear and foot supports may be needed to prevent it occurring again. If the deformity is severe or it happens again, then surgery may be used to reshape the deformity.

If you have diabetes and start to loose sensation in your feet and legs, then the risk for developing Charcot’s is high. Feet need to be checked regularly for any signs of swelling, redness or temperature changes. Very prompt medical attention is needed to halt the progression of the problem.

If you are a health professional, the most recent information on Charcot’s neuroarthropathy is available at Podiatry Arena. If you have Charcot’s and want to ask questions about it or make contact with others who have it, then there are the Charcot’s Foot threads at the Foot Health Forum.

Early diabetes signs can be elusive or seemingly benign — if one has them at all. One could have diabetes for long period or even for years and not have any diabetes symptoms. Understanding potential diabetes symptoms can take to early diagnosing and treatment — and a lifetime of better health.

Diabetes Symptoms can cause Excessive thirst and increased urination: If you find you are drinking more water and urinating more the usual it could be a symptom of diabetes. When someone has diabetes, extra sugar (glucose) can builds up in the blood.

The kidneys are forced to do over job to filter out and take in the extra sugar. If the kidneys can’t do the job, the extra sugar is passed into the urine along with liquids taken from the tissues. This stimulates more often urination, which may leave dried up. As one drinks more liquids to slake the thirst, one will pee even more.

Exhaustion: A person with diabetes may feel extremely tired and worn out. Lots of fundamentals can add to this. They are drying up from raised urination and the body’s unfitness to work properly, since taking sugar for energy is ineffective.

Weight loss: Weight variations also fall under the comprehensive of possible diabetes symptoms. When one loses sugar by often urination, one also loses calories.

What also happens is the diabetes stops the sugar reaching the cells which means you will be constantly hungry, this could cause possible weight loss, especially if you have type 1 diabetes.

Blurred vision: One symptom can be damage of the vision. High amounts of blood sugar take liquid from the lenses of the eyes. Which makes it harder to focus. Left untreated, this could cause new blood cells in the retina — the hind part of the eye — as well as damage old vessels. For a lot of people this doesn’t cause any harm. But, if these alters advance and are ignored, they can lead to sight loss and blindness or other eye problems health. This is a type 2 diabetes symptom.

Slow-healing sores or frequent infections: Doctors and individuals with diabetes have found that contagions seem more usual if they have diabetes. Research about this disease, has not evidenced whether this is all true, nor why. It may be that high contents of blood sugar spoil the body’s natural curing process and the ability to combat contagions. For women, bladder and vaginal contagions are particularly common.

Tingling hands and feet: Extra sugar in the blood can also cause injury to the nerves. You may feel a prickling sensation and loss of sense in the hands as well as feet, you could also feel a burning sensation in the arms, hands, legs and feet.

If you are diagnosed with diabetes as an adult, you have diabetes type 2. Today, there are far too many kids also being diagnosed with diabetes and this is is called type 1. Is there a cure for diabetes most expert say no, but you must know that taking care of yourself is the key to reversin diabetes and its health effects the problems associated with diabetes. Taking care of yourself does not only mean avoiding sugar, but it also means eating fiber, low carbohydrate and other foods that help control sugar levels, and having proper and regular exercise.

When you have diabetes it puts you at risk for many health problems such as heart disease,kidney and other organ failures and infections, oral problems, and blindness. This is a serious disease that demands respect and concern and if not managed, will take its toll on your health. People with diabetes are 2-4 times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke. Diabetics are also at risk for infections with their feet, which, if not treated, can result in amputation.

The American Diabetes Association recommends that your blood sugar not go over70-120 if you are not diagnosed with diabetes. If you have diabetes, it is recommended that a lasting blood sugar level be up to 130. After eating, that level can rise up to 180. Your doctor will be doing an A1C test, which shows the levels of sugar in your system for 2-3 months before the test and will let you know the readings. The American Diabetes Association recommends that this level not exceed 7.0. You must make appointments and keep the appointments on a regular basis and get this test done quarterly to know if you are hitting the levels that are most desirable for your situation.

Any type of exercise you can do will also keep your levels consistently low. Ten minutes of exercise a day three times is allright if you cannot get in 30 minutes of exercise in the day. The goal is to bring down your A1C levels and the sugar levels in your blood. For every 1% you can get your level down, it is thought that you can decrease your risk of certain health related problems by as much as 40%. That is a tremendous incentive and will prolong your life and your quality of life.

You should not skip meals to try reversing diabetes. After you eat, the body will demand the pancreas to increase the insulin output and also the liver will shut down making more sugar. If you are not eating, these signals will not be received. When you have diabetes, these signals are not so pronounced. So, eating small portions throughout the day is key to keeping the insulin levels in balance and not yo yoing up and down. If you do not eat, you body can become nervous, shaky, dizzy, light-headed, and you might start to have trouble forming correct sentences. This is called hypoglycemia when your blood sugar levels go too low.

You need to limit severely or cut out alcohol when you have diabetes type 2. The prescription drugs taken with diabetes can have undesirable problems when alcohol is consumed.

If you take diabetes seriously and manage the types of foods and timing of meals and snacks as well as keeping exercise a routine of your day, you can overcome the unwanted problems of diabetes and live a long life. You family and friends are counting on you. There is hope out there and someday,god willing, we will know how to cure diabetes

Over the years, diabetes has slowly become a major public health problem. Over twenty million people in the U.S. have diabetes according to the According to the American juvenile diabetes association - most of them with type 2 diabetes. With the federal government and insurance companies facing increasing medical costs of treating diabetes and its associated problems, there is a great incentive to begin identifying those at risk for diabetes before they actually develop this chronic disease.

One way of doing this is with various types of diabetes pre-screening tests. Diabetes is defined as a metabolism disorder where the person has excessive sugar in the blood. Testing, however, cannot be performed by simply drawing blood and measuring the glucose levels. This is because a significant portion of the public has normal blood glucose levels during the day but raised glucose levels as they eat during the day. Any valid test for diabetes has to take this into account.

Medical care practitioners use 3 primary text to determine if someone has diabetes. What they measure is how fast and efficiently your body is able to clear glucose from your blood stream. A test showing results of relatively high glucose levels is a good indication that you have glucose intolerance, pre-diabetes, or diabetes. The three tests are:

1) Random or casual plasma glucose testing - the patient can be tested at any point in the day. According to the American Diabetes Association, if the test shows a casual plasma glucose concentration of 200 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl), it has met the criteria for a diagnosis of diabetes.

2) Fasting plasma glucose (FPG) testing - often called the fasting blood sugar test due to the fact that the patient has to fast before the test is given. In this context, fasting means that the patient has not ingested food or drink, other than water, for at least 8 hours before the test. This test is probably most convenient for the patient when performed first thing in the morning after a night’s sleep. The test measures blood glucose levels. The normal glucose level after fasting is about 100 mg/dl. If the glucose concentration is 126 mg/dl or more, a diagnosis of diabetes can be made . Monitoring of the blood glucose measurements goes on throughout the day. This test is very popular with insurance companies and health care providers because it’s relatively inexpensive. This is also a standard test given to check for pre-diabetes.

3) Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT) - The best and most comprehensive of the tests. It is more sensitive than the FPG test and can test for impaired glucose intolerance which the other two cannot. It’s also the most expensive, making it the least popular with insurance companies and health providers. The test is performed two hours after orally taking 75 grams of glucose. A diagnosis of diabetes can be made if the blood glucose results show 200 mg/dl or greater.

For various reasons, a testing result can give a false positive, indicating that a person has diabetes when, in fact he doesn’t. Because of this, if a test shows positive, it should be repeated to confirm the results.

The thought of getting diabetes is probably more dreaded than getting a tax audit, but is easier to live through.  Tax audits can come without warning, but symptoms of both types of diabetes precede the need to go to the emergency room.  Diabetes in either form does not go away if ignored; it only gets worse over time and can eventually kill you.But when you implement eating changes and early diagnosis you can live a healthy, quality, fun and long life. 

If you are a caretaker of a child or an elderly person, you also need to know the early symptoms of diabetes because your charge will not think anything of it.  Please see the doctor when in any doubt and do not use this article as a substitute for a doctor’s advice.  The sooner the symptoms of diabetes are dealt with, the sooner you or your charges can get back to feeling normal again (maybe even better than normal).

Are You Gonna Be In There All Day?

One of the top type of warning symptoms for diabetes would be increased thirst which will also make you want to urinate much more often.  Diabetes throws the blood sugar and the kidneys out of whack, so they go into warp drive, keeping the bladder constantly filled.  You can actually be in danger of dehydration, even if you are constantly drinking, because the kidneys have to pull water out of your body in order to try and lower glucose levels.

I Rested All Day And I’m Still Tired

Another of the symptoms of diabetes to pay attention to is feeling tired all of the time for no apparent reason.Your body does all it can possibly do to deal with the high blood sugar in your system, which uses up a whole bunch of your energy also.  insulin is the stuff the body needs to bring glucose to cells.  If there isn’t enough insulin, then the cells can’t get the energy they need to keep on going.  This in turn makes a diabetic feel constantly wiped out. 

Are My Hands Still Asleep?

Numbness and/or tingling in your extremities especially the feet and hands is one of the top symptoms of diabetes that you must not ignore.  Everyone gets some tingling when they stay too long in one position or sleep funny, but all the buzzing and tingles should stop after a few minutes of moving around.When your body has problems getting your cells all the energy required, it just prioritizes.  Inner organs get the major blood flow and the limbs get shafted. 

Symptoms of diabetes at DiabeticsBooks.Com