Symptoms of Diabetes

[Nienna]

Diabetes often goes undiagnosed because many of its symptoms seem so harmless. Recent studies indicate that the early detection of diabetes symptoms and treatment can decrease the chance of developing the complications of diabetes.

Some diabetes symptoms include:


* Frequent urination
* Excessive thirst
* Extreme hunger (blood sugar bottoms out, with dizzy spells)
* Unusual weight loss
* Increased fatigue
* Irritability
* Blurry vision (during dizzy spells)

http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-symptoms.jsp

Take this short test to see if you are at risk for diabetes...
http://www.diabetes.org/risk-test.jsp

 

[Bullypulpit]

It is also important to point out the consequences of uncontrolled diabetes.

These include:

Blindness
Heart Disease
Stroke
Neuropathies (Changes in sensation, particularly in the extremities, due to nerve damage)
Peripheral vascular disease, due to damage to the capillary beds and supporting vasculature
Renal Failure, again, due to damage to the vascular system
Amputation secondary to neuropathies and peripheral vascualr disease. This is a result of injuries the diabetic patient does not feel, most often, on their feet. The resulting infection and tissue death can require an emergent amputation if left untreated fo too long.

I see these consequences every day as a dialysis nurse. They didn't have too happen.

 

[anne12]

Hello Friends..........

Symptoms of diabetes are

# Sleeplessness or disturbed sleep

# Lack of concentration, confused mind, memory loss & irritability

# Vague pain / cramps

# Numbness and tingling sensation in extremities or in any parts

# Burning feet / hands

# Sweet smelly urine

# Dryness of skin (with or without itch) and mucous membrane (example - dryness of mouth)

# Development of recurrent boils

Thanks

 

[R.C. Christian]

And then your kidney's stop functioning and it's adios muchachos.

 

[editec]

You missed one.

YOUR BREATHE smells like Juicy Fruit gum

 

[waltky]

Kidney disease can be a complication arising from diabetes...

Kidney disease 'biggest threat' for diabetics
24 January 2013 - Keeping your kidneys healthy could be one of the best ways to extend your life if you have diabetes, researchers have suggested.

The University of Washington study found that having kidney disease meant a much higher risk of early death. UK experts say that the NHS is still not putting enough effort into detecting and controlling kidney problems caused by diabetes. Figures from 2012 suggest only seven in 10 patients get vital annual checks. Approximately 5% of people in the UK have been diagnosed with diabetes, and careful management of their condition through a combination of medication and lifestyle changes can mean it has relatively little impact on their lives.

However, if the disease has been present for some time prior to diagnosis, or is poorly managed afterwards, the risk of life-changing complications rises. These include eye and lower limb problems, and kidney problems. The research, in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, looked at mortality rates over a 10-year period in more than 15,000 adults, with and without diabetes. Kidney disease was present in 9.4% of the people without diabetes, and 42.3% of those with diabetes. They found that 7.7% of those without diabetes or kidney disease died over the course of the decade-long study. This rose to 11.5% for people with diabetes but no kidney disease, but soared to 31.1% for people with diabetes and kidney disease.

'No excuse'

Lead researcher Dr Maryam Afkarian said: "People with type-two diabetes have many other risk factors for cardiovascular disease and mortality, so we expected that kidney disease would predict a part, but not a majority, of higher mortality." Singling this group of patients out for intensive treatment, or working harder to prevent kidney disease from taking hold, could be a powerful way of reducing deaths among people with diabetes, she added. Cathy Moulton, a clinical adviser at Diabetes UK, said that if detected early, diabetic kidney disease could be controlled using blood pressure medication. However, the charity's 2012 report found that as many as three in 10 patients were missing out the simple blood or urine tests that would reveal their kidney problems.

She said: "There really is no excuse for this - there is clear guidance saying that kidney function should be tested. "Very often the doctor will be taking blood for other purposes, such as checking cholesterol levels, so it is the easiest thing in the world to do." Kidney failure would cost the NHS thousands more in expensive dialysis treatments, she added. Diabetes UK has compiled a list of 15 "healthcare essentials" that it says every patient with the disease should read and ensure they are receiving from the NHS.

BBC News - Kidney disease 'biggest threat' for diabetics

 

[gossesteph]

Every intention has been made to make this article accurate and informative but it is intended for general information only. Diabetes is a medical condition and this article is not intended as a substitute for the advice of your doctor or a qualified medical practitioner.

 

[waltky]

Charity warns of increased amputations due to slow diabetic care...

Slow care leads to foot amputations
22 February 2013 - Thousands of diabetes patients end up having a foot amputation because of slow treatment, a charity warns.

Diabetes UK says that up to 80% of foot amputations could be avoided if better care was in place. Patients are suffering because many areas do not have services in place to quickly deal with foot ulcers and infections. By 2015, the number of diabetes-related amputations is expected to rise to 7,000 a year. When diabetes, both Types 1 and Type 2, is present for many years, especially if it is poorly controlled, it can cause complications such as reducing blood flow to vessels in the feet and nerve damage which reduces sensation.

Toe and foot amputations are a consequence of diabetes

This increases the risk of ulcers and infections that may lead to amputation. A report produced in collaboration with the Society for Chiropodists and Podiatrists and NHS Diabetes points out that people with diabetes are more than 20 times more likely to have an amputation than the rest of the population. It recommends that all hospitals have a multi-disciplinary footcare team as recommended in national guidelines.

Figures suggest that 40% of hospitals currently do not have such teams in place. Every hospital also needs to be able to guarantee that people with urgent foot problems can be assessed by the right professionals within 24 hours, the report urges. This is because ulcers can deteriorate extremely quickly and a matter of hours can make the difference between keeping a foot and losing it.

Prevention

See also:

Dogs Cured of Type 1 Diabetes
February 15, 2013 - Beagles no longer showed diabetes symptoms following a single course of gene therapy.

Gene therapy has successfully banished type 1 diabetes in dogs, the first time this treatment has worked to treat the disease in a large animal, according to a study published online in the journal Diabetes earlier this month (February 1).

For the study, Spanish researchers induced diabetes in beagles between 6 months and 1 year old. They then injected the dogs’ skeletal muscles with viruses carrying genes for insulin and glucokinase, an enzyme involved in processing glucose. Following the treatment, the researcher confirmed that the genes had been incorporated into the DNA of the dogs, which were able to regulate their own blood sugar levels without medical help. And when they exercised, they no longer had episodes of hypoglycemia. Dogs that were injected with viruses carrying only the gene for insulin or only the gene for glucokinase continued to have symptoms of diabetes, indicating that the genes acted in concert.

Following more tests in dogs, the researchers hope to try out the treatment in humans. But sources warned New Scientist that the treatment might not work the same way in humans that it did in canines, as the dogs’ diabetes was induced by chemically destroying pancreas cells that produce insulin. In naturally occurring type 1 diabetes, on the other hand, the immune system destroys the insulin-producing cells. Still, “this work is an interesting new avenue which may give us a completely new type of treatment,” Matthew Hobbs, head of research at Diabetes UK, told New Scientist.

Dogs Cured of Type 1 Diabetes | The Scientist Magazine®

 

[waltky]

Gestational diabetes is a growing problem...

Do more women need diabetes care when pregnant?
Mar 6,`13 WASHINGTON (AP) -- A change in testing could nearly triple the number of women diagnosed with diabetes during pregnancy, but would catching milder cases help mother or baby? A government panel is urging more research to find that out before doctors make the switch.

Gestational diabetes - the kind that strikes during pregnancy - is a growing problem. More women are getting it as they wait until their 30s or later to have a baby, and as they increasingly begin their pregnancies already overweight. This is one of the most common complications of pregnancy, and just about every woman gets checked for it. That's because if mom's high blood sugar isn't controlled, the fetus can grow too large, leading to C-sections and early deliveries.

There are other problems, too: Mom can get dangerous high blood pressure; the baby can be born with low blood sugar; the baby's risk of obesity in childhood is increased. And while this kind of diabetes usually disappears when the baby's born, the mother is left with another risk. Months or years later, half of women who had it wind up developing full-fledged Type 2 diabetes. Doctors today diagnose gestational diabetes in about 5 percent to 6 percent of U.S. pregnancies, or about 240,000 a year, according to experts convened this week by the National Institutes of Health.

Most U.S. doctors use a two-step testing method. But now there's a push for doctors to switch to a simpler one-step test that's used in other parts of the world. The one-step approach, backed by the American Diabetes Association and World Health Organization, isn't just about the convenience of getting diagnosed in one doctor visit or two. It also would lower the blood sugar threshold for diagnosing the condition. "The implications of this are very, very large, and there are so many unanswered questions," said Dr. Catherine Spong of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

On Wednesday, the NIH-appointed panel agreed, and said many more pregnant women would be classified with gestational diabetes - 15 to 20 percent - if doctors widely adopted the one-step approach. The more aggressive approach treats milder cases with diet and exercise, not medication. But that's still a lot of women who would get extra medical care, such as nutritionist visits and doctor checks of their blood sugar and their baby's growth, not to mention uncertainty about whether C-sections would increase. That could add up to hundreds of millions of dollars in health costs annually.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Sniffing out hypoglycemia...

Dogs Trained to Monitor Low Blood Sugar May Save Lives
May 07, 2018 — Dogs can be trained to sniff out drugs and explosives, so Mark Ruefenacht wondered if their exquisite sense of smell could be used to detect changes in a diabetic’s blood sugar level.

A near fatal episode prompted the forensic scientist, who’s had diabetes for most of his adult life, to ask that question. In 1999, while he was training a puppy to be a guide dog for the blind, his blood sugar suddenly dropped to a dangerously low level. “More than likely, I had a seizure, from the low blood sugar,” Ruefenacht recalled, as he explained how the puppy kept trying to rouse him. “And he stuck with me and I was able to get my blood sugar up.” That incident made him wonder if dogs could be trained to detect the inherent chemical changes that accompany a drop in blood sugar, called hypoglycemia, then alert their owners.

Dogs4Diabetics

Ruefenacht worked with scientists and funded research which determined that the “smell” of hypoglycemia shows up in both breath and sweat. He also worked with and studied professionals who train dogs to sniff out everything from explosives to cancer. And most important of all, Ruefenacht started training a fun-loving yellow Labrador retriever named Armstrong to alert him when he was having a dangerously low blood sugar. The training proved so successful, Armstrong is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first diabetes-detection dog. Sitting under a poster of Armstrong, who died in 2012, Ruefenacht recalls that those early successes led some organizations to offer him large sums of money for the rights to his discoveries. Ruefenacht says he turned those opportunities down. Instead, in 2004, he founded Dogs4Diabetics. He says properly training a diabetes detection dog and its owner can cost $50,000. The organization raises money to cover these expenses, then provides the dogs at no cost to people who qualify.

The smell of hypoglycemia

The dogs are trained to identify the scent of hypoglycemia on a reliable and consistent basis. Ruefenacht uses jars containing swabs of sweat from a diabetic who had low blood sugar, randomly mixed with jars of other distracting smells, such as peanut butter, dog food and eucalyputus. The dogs are rewarded when they select the correct jar. This "sweat jar" method for training diabetes alert dogs has been validated scientifically. The next step is to teach them to alert their owner. The dogs are trained to use subtle signals, but if those go unnoticed, to put their paws on his lap, or balance on their back legs and put their front paws on his shoulders. They learn to snuffle at his nose and mouth, lick his face and bark. And if all else fails, they’re trained to get someone else to come and help.

Mark Ruefenacht and Armstrong, the first diabetes alert dog.​

Ruefenacht says the dogs are often aware of blood sugar drops long before electronic monitoring systems send a warning alarm. Dogs4Diabetics has placed more than 100 dogs with diabetics. They hope to expand the program - training humanity's most loyal companion to save lives and help diabetics around the world.

Dogs Trained to Monitor Low Blood Sugar May Save Lives