Diabetes - Symptoms, Test and Control

What is Diabetes?

Diabetes is a defect in the body’s ability to convert glucose to energy. It is caused due to insufficient production of glucose by the pancreas. In diabetes patients, the production of glucose is impaired.

What are the symptoms of Diabetes?

Patients with Type-1 diabetes usually develop symptoms over a short period of time, and the condition is often diagnosed in an emergency setting.

Symptoms of type 1 diabetes:

· Increased thirst

· Fatigue

· Nausea

· Increased urination

· Weight loss in spite of increased appetite

· Vomiting

However, because Type-2 diabetes develops slowly, some people with high blood sugar experience no symptoms at all.

Symptoms of type 2 diabetes:

· Increased thirst

· Impotence in men

· Increased appetite

· Increased urination

· Blurred vision

· Fatigue

· Slow-healing infections

How to diagnose diabetes?

The diagnosis of diabetes is made by a simple blood test measuring blood glucose level. Usually blood glucose level tests are repeated on a subsequent day to confirm the diagnosis. Your health care team may also request that you have a glucose tolerance test. If two hours after taking the glucose drink your glucose level is 200 or above, you will be diagnosed as having diabetes.

How can I control diabetes?

· Gather all the information about diabetes, its symptoms and causes

· Check your blood glucose level regularly

· If find any symptom of diabetes, visit your health care team for diagnosis of diabetes

· Ask your health care team about how to check blood glucose level at home

· Stop smoking

· Exercise daily

· Follow a healthy meal plan

· Check your vision at regular intervals, If found blurred visit your health care team

· Check your feet regularly for checking the occurrence of diabetes

· If you are diabetic, monitor you diabetes regularly

· Follow instructions of health care team strictly

· Avoid sweet ingredients, use sugar free food

Can diabetes be cured?

As yet, there is no treatment for either type of diabetes, although there are many ways of keeping diabetes in control. Studies have shown that good control of blood glucose (blood sugar) is the key to avoid diabetic complications later.

What are the treatment options to cure diabetes?

Diabetes is incurable. The only option is to prevent ourselves from diabetes or to keep diabetes under control.

Is diabetes a hereditary disease?

You are at higher risk of Type 2 diabetes if you have a parent, brother or sister with diabetes.

Complications of Diabetes

If you have diabetes, you are much more likely to know complication of diabetes like risk of stroke, heart disease, or a heart attack. In fact, 2 out of 3 people with diabetes die from stroke or heart disease. There are three conditions that make people with diabetes vulnerable to foot problems. These are vascular disease and foot deformities. About 30 percent of patients with Type 1 diabetes and 10 to 40 percent of those with Type 2 diabetes eventually will suffer from kidney failure. Diabetes also may cause damage to nerves in your body.

Author is running a health information site http://www.peoples-health.com where information on several diseases like allergies, blood disorders, cancer, children’s health, digestive disorder, liver diseases etc. and tips on dieting, nutrition and improving lifestyle has been provided. Find some useful articles on diabetes here- http://www.peoples-health.com/diabetes.htm

Diabetes : How to check blood sugar level yourself?

Diabetes is one of the most prevailing diseases now a day. Population of diabetic patients is increasingly dramatically since last few years. So it is very important to keep a check on diabetes. In this concern you yourself play a big role in managing your diabetes. First, you need to know how diabetes affects your body.

To Check your blood sugar regularly tells you whether your lifestyle, your physical activity, meal plans, and medicines doing a good job controlling your diabetes.

There are two easy methods to test your blood sugar level yourself. They take less than two minutes.

• Finger-stick method
  
• Noninvasive method
  

FINGER-STICK METHOD

Most equipment for checking blood sugar level involves pricking your finger with a tiny needle (lancet) to draw a drop of blood. Some draw the blood from your forearm. For reading your blood sugar level, you can use a blood glucosemete that will show the number on its screen.

There are many types of meters. Your doctor can help you choose one and show you how to use it. If you still have questions, check the instructions that came with your meter.

There are many Newer options also available in the market rather than a lancet for creating the tiny hole needed to draw the blood from the finger like they test blood from other less sensitive parts of the body than the fingertips

These new devices draw blood in ways similar to the finger-stick method.

To check your diabetes through finger stick method, follow these simple steps:

Step 1 - Wash your hands with warm water and dry them well with a clean towel. You can also use an alcohol wipe to clean the finger that you’ll draw blood from.

Hold your hand below your waist for a minute or so. This helps blood pool in the finger, making it easier to get enough blood for the test.

Step 2 - After preparing your lancet and glucose meter, have a clean test strip ready. Stick the side of your fingertip with the lancet. There are many kinds of lancets and meters. Some draw blood from your forearm. Your lancet and meter may not look like the one in this photo.

Step 3-Put a drop of blood on the test strip.

Step 4-To get your results, follow the directions that came with your blood sugar meter. Some meters can give results in a few minutes.

Step 5-Write down the results and the time you did the test.

Mostly doctors will use these records to see how well you’re managing your blood sugar level.

NON INVASIVE METHOD

Any other blood sugar testing tool does not draw blood. You wear it on your wrist like a watch and it takes the reading through your skin. It uses a slight electrical current to pull fluid through the skin and into the machine, where it measures the sugar level.

The watch can’t replace your regular finger-stick test. But the watch lets you see trends in how your blood sugar changes over the course of the day.

There are some guidelines to heck your diabetes with noninvasive method

Some general guidelines for checking your blood sugar level are given as below

• Wear the device for a three-hour warm-up before taking a reading. During this time, don’t bathe or swim
• Adjust the device by entering a blood sugar measurement that you’ve gotten by the finger-stick method every time you use the watch
• The device will automatically take readings every 20 minutes for up to 12 hours. It can be programmed to sound an alarm if your blood sugar reaches dangerously high or low levels.