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American Diabetes Month – Part II – Risk Factors and Symptoms

Angela PeaLeave a comment

Risk Factors and Symptoms

Are you at risk to develop diabetes? You may be if you are:

  • overweight
  • sedentary – you don’t get enough exercise!
  • of Hispanic, American Indian or African American heritage

or if you have:

  • had gestational diabetes
  • delivered a nine pound or larger baby
  • other family members who have diabetes

If you are at risk, you need be aware of the symptoms of diabetes. Symptoms are subtle, and are often mistaken for other illnesses, or just ignored as part of “getting older”. Common symptoms include:

  • frequent need to urinate
  • extreme thirst
  • dry mouth
  • cuts and bruises that take a LONG time to heal, more than a few days
  • excessive fatigue
  • unexplained weight loss OR
  • inability to lose weight, even when on a restricted calorie diet
  • constant numbness or tingling in your hands and feet
  • blurry vision, and a rapid deterioration in your eyesight

Symptoms that occur for women only include:

  • continued and constant yeast infections
  • lack of desire

Strangest symptom by far:

  • pink “mold” growing at the waterline in your toilet bowl! This is actually a yeast mold caused by the excess sugar in your urine.

There is some good news: most of these symptoms go away once you get your diabetes under control!

Tomorrow: My Own Story, and What to Do If YOU Have Symptoms

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American Diabetes Month

Angela PeaLeave a comment
I have diabetes.

My story is not uncommon. More than 15 million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with diabetes. The sad fact is that there is an estimated 6 million more people out there who may have it and not even know it.

Diabetes is a disease that causes too much sugar to be floating around in your bloodstream. But it’s not just about eating candy and sweets. Our digestive systems turn the foods that we eat into sugar and sends it into our bloodstream in order to fuel our muscles and organs and keep our bodies going. Our pancreas produces a hormone called insulin that makes it possible for the sugar to move out of our bloodstream INTO our muscles and organs where it is needed for fuel. A person with diabetes either has a pancreas that doesn’t make enough insulin (Type I diabetes), or the insulin that the pancreas does produce doesn’t work properly (Type II Diabetes). The result either way? A whole lot of sugar floating around in you blood.

Well, what’s wrong with that? Several things. First, your body isn’t getting the fuel it needs to work properly. Your muscles are tired, your organs are exhausted, and your brain isn’t functioning at full speed. Second, sugar molecules are very large compared to the cells inside your body. As the sugar flows throughout your body in your blood stream, these large sugar molecules are causing damage to your kidneys, your liver, your heart, your eyes and your nerves. This damage can be healed if your diabetes is diagnosed early, and if you work to keep your blood sugar under control. If you ignore your diabetes, or if it goes undiagnosed for years, this damage becomes permanent and the results are kidney or liver failure, heart disease, permanent nerve damage or even blindness.

Tomorrow – Risk Factors and Symptoms