Coping with Diabetes
Every day, in the United States, more than 2000 new cases of diabetes are diagnosed. Type II diabetes, the most prevalent form of diabetes worldwide, often shows few or even no symptoms!
After eating, food is broken down into what is known as glucose, a sugar carried by the blood to cells throughout the body. Using a hormone known as insulin, made in the pancreas, cells process glucose into energy.
Because cells in the muscles, liver, and fat do not use insulin properly in the body of a person with type II diabetes, they have problems converting food into energy. Eventually, the pancreas cannot make enough insulin for the body’s needs. The amount of glucose in the body increases, and the cells are starved of energy.
This starvation of the cells, paired with the high blood glucose level can damage nerves and blood vessels. This leads to complications such as kidney disease, nerve problems, blindness, and heart ailments.
There are a lot of factors that can help to attribute to diabetes cases – lifestyle, environment, heredity – and those who are at risk should be screened regularly to prevent diabetes. Those that are already diagnosed with diabetes should aim to keep their glucose level under control.
But how do you know if you have type II diabetes? After all, it has few symptoms, often no symptoms in some patients. However, if you notice an increased thirst or hunger, a change in weight, or blurred vision, getting tested for type II diabetes is necessary, as only your doctor will be able to help you find the treatment steps necessary to being able to manage your life with diabetes.
Simple changes such as eating right, managing your weight, and keeping your blood sugar level under control may be enough. However, you doctor may prescribe diabetes-regulating medications to assist you in controlling your type II diabetes.
Diabetes is a serious ailment with extreme consequences if it isn’t treated properly. But if you follow your doctor’s advice and maintain both your lifestyle and blood sugar levels, you can help to prevent the more serious consequences from occurring.
This article is for information purposes only and is not meant to treat, diagnose or prevent any ailment or disease. See your physician for proper diagnosis and treatment.
5 Diabetes Travel Tips
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Planning ahead when you travel reduces stress. This is particularly important for a diabetic. These 5 diabetes travel tips are simple to implement and crucial to your diabetic management. They are particularly important if you are traveling abroad.
1) Have a pre-travel check-up. Make sure your A1C blood sugar levels; your blood pressure and your cholesterol levels are OK. Get the appropriate shots for any country you plan to visit.
2) Wear a diabetes medical ID. Ideally it should be in the language spoken in the country you’re visiting. Not everyone speaks your language and you don’t want medical problems through misunderstandings.
3) Keep your medication and glucose snacks in your hand-luggage. Check-in baggage does, unfortunately, go astray. Don’t risk your diabetes medication by packing it in your main luggage.
4) Keep your medication in its original box, complete with pharmacy labels. It will prevent misunderstandings about why you are carrying drugs and, if you are on insulin, syringes.
5) Be aware of time zone changes, especially when altering your watch. Remember when you travel east your day becomes shorter; if you travel west your day becomes longer. You may need to alter the timings of your medication.
Traveling need not be traumatic. A sensible attitude and a bit of pre-travel planning can make things go far more smoothly.
7 Diabetes Foot Care Tips
If you have diabetes information about how to manage your condition is vital to your well being.
If you don’t look after your feet you run the risk of developing sores or infections that could, in the worst case scenario, lead to amputations. As happened to my father-in-law. Reduce your risk of infection or amputation by incorporating these 7 foot care tips…
1) Check your feet daily – especially if you have low sensitivity or no feeling in your feet. Sores, cuts and grazes could go unnoticed and you could develop problems leading to amputations.
2) Don’t go around barefoot, even indoors. It’s easy to tread on something or stub your toes and cut yourself. Protect your feet with socks/stockings and
shoes/slippers.
3) Be careful if you have corns or calluses. Check with your doctor or podiatrist the best way to care for them.
4) Wash your feet daily in warm, NOT HOT water. And don’t soak your feet (even if you’ve been standing all day) because it could dry your skin and form cracks or sores.
5) Take extra care to dry your feet completely, especially between your toes. These are natural moisture traps – leaving them damp or wet could create all sorts of problems.
6) Exercise your legs and feet regularly. Even when sitting you can rotate your ankles; wiggle your toes or move your legs up and down. These all keep your blood circulation flowing and helps to minimize the risk of foot problems.
7) Get your feet professionally checked, at least once a year, for sensitivity and signs of any problems. You can usually arrange this when you have your annual check up for your AC1 levels (blood glucose levels over a 3-month period), blood pressure and cholesterol.
Take constant care of your feet. Get help from a relative or professional; Doctor, diabetic nurse or podiatrist if you are not able to bend when trimming nails or checking for sores. Taking these simple actions will help you reduce the risk of painful problems.
7 Reasons Why Smoking is Even More Hazardous for Diabetics
Here are 7 reasons why mixing diabetes with smoking is a very bad idea:
1) You are more likely to get nerve damage (neuropathy). This is because smoking affects your blood circulation and that in turn means your nerve endings are not getting the nutrients they need. If this happens to the nerves in your feet it could lead to sores and infections and, if not taken care of properly, even amputation.
2) There is an increased risk – double in fact -of you getting limited mobility in your joints. It’s no fun trying to bend, climb stairs or lift something when you have a painful joint.
3) Because of smoking you could develop kidney disease.
4) When you smoke your blood pressure increases. Increased blood pressure creates a real risk of heart disease.
5) Research has shown that diabetics who smoke increase, 3-fold, the risk of dying of heart (cardiovascular) disease.
6) By smoking you increase your blood-sugar levels. This makes it more difficult to control your diabetes because your glucose levels could be fluctuating quite dramatically. This, in turn, leads to other problems.
7) And it also increases your cholesterol levels, which increases the risk of a heart attack.
In fact smoking – and passive smoking – have a seriously detrimental effect on the ABC’s of diabetes management:
A) 1C – the measurement of your blood glucose over a 3-month period
B) your blood pressure, which should be below 130/80
C) your cholesterol levels. Cholesterol levels include LDL, HDL and triglycerides. Your LDL should be below 100. HDL levels should be above 40 (for men) and above 50 (for women). Tryglycerides should be below 150.
And, of course, on top of all that there’s the proven risk of cancer!
7 Steps on How to Prevent Diabetes
Diabetes is more prevalent than ever and 95% of cases diagnosed are type 2 diabetes.
Although for some the development of diabetes is inevitable, perhaps due to heriditery and other factors, for the vast majority it can be prevented by taking these 7 simple steps…
Before diabetes type 2 becomes fully developed you go through a stage known as pre-diabetes. This is where you start to show some of the symptoms, which if ignored, can lead to full blown diabetes.
Make these 7 action points part of your daily routine and you could stop this disease happening to you:
1) If you are overweight you risk developing diabetes. Reduce the amount of food on your plate so you gradually eat less and start to lose weight. Drink a glass of plain water or a sugar-free drink before your meal to take the edge of any hunger pains.
2) Reduce the amount of fat you are eating; grill or bake foods instead of frying; use low-fat spreads and reduced fat meals.
3) Check the Glycemic Index of the food you are eating – knowing what each food contains helps maintain your blood-sugars, which in turn can prevent the full onset of diabetes.
4) Drink at least 8 glasses of water every day. If you keep a bottle of water with you and sip frequently you’ll be surprised how much you do drink throughout the day.
5) If you are feeling peckish choose a healthy snack rather than a chocolate bar.
6) Use skimmed rather than full-fat milk in hot drinks.
7) Exercise is good for health. But if you are not use to exercise then start in moderation. 15 minutes gentle walking each day will ease you into a regular exercising pattern.
All of these action points are also the ones that diabetics are advised to take – if you take them now you might possibly prevent irreparable damage to your health.
