Diabetes is the most common cause of new blindness. It is one of the major causes of kidney disease. It more than doubles the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Diabetes may lead to male impotence. It causes a person to have many more infections than normal, and it may make foot or leg amputations necessary. All of these are in addition to the usual out of control blood sugar level complications such as hypoglycemia, ketoacidosis, and hyperglycemia.
Not every diabetic will develop such complications, but he must constantly be alert for the warning signs of problems. The diabetic must have medical checkups quite often. Most likely, he will need considerably more medical care than the average person.
Thousands of people have diabetes without even knowing it. Many of them will only discover their diabetes when they go to a doctor for other problems. And they find out that the trouble with their eyes, feet or heart is actually a complication of diabetes.
If you have never been checked for diabetes, but someone in your family has diabetes, if you are overweight and if you are above the age of 35, you may be at risk. Don’t take a chance, go for a diabetes screening test or ask your doctor to check your blood sugar level.
If you know that you have diabetes, the best way to avoid or at least delay complications is to keep your blood glucose as close to non diabetic levels as possible. This requires staying in constant control of diabetes, testing frequently, exercising regularly, and eating wisely.
A diabetic who already has a complication may be able to prevent it from getting worse by staying in good control of his blood sugar level.
No one can accurately predict who will develop any of the complications of diabetes, but whether you are a gambling person or not, one thing is a safe bet, prevention is much better than cure. Living a healthy lifestyle with a good blood glucose control, proper diet, regular exercise, and no smoking will greatly reduce your chances of trouble.
With diabetes, life is even more of a gamble. Every day the diabetic has decisions to make, big decisions, little decisions. But every one of them makes a difference in how well the diabetes is controlled. And every one of them may be making a difference whether or not the diabetic will have any of the serious complications of diabetes later on.
If you look at smoking and lung cancer, a non smoker may still get the disease, while a heavy cigarette smoker may escape without even getting cancer. So it is with diabetic and all his efforts at maintaining good control. Even with the best efforts at regulating his life, he may still have complications. And a person who always seems careless about his diabetes may somehow escape without serious problems. Yet statistically speaking, looking at the law of chances, the person who is careful about his diabetes control has a much better chance of escaping the complications so common to the diabetic.
Samuel Fuentes is a Filipino Registered Nurse from the Philippines. To know more about diabetes you may visit his site on www.diabetic.com.ph/.
