Further Complications Associated With Diabetes

Diabetes is considered as a mother of host of maladies. So a diabetic should take extreme care while he is undergoing treatment and even afterwards. Once you develop diabetes, you are likely to remain affected with it for the rest of the life. So you need to be extremely careful and attentive towards prevention of complications that most of the times develop without you noticing it.

If you are diabetic and want to prolong your life, you need to be much conscious in your quest to keep blood sugar levels under control. That's the key to your safety from complication that would prove disastrous for your health.

Your little negligence would add to your misery. A diabetic is also needed to know in detail about expected complications, so that he/she could check or prevent these diseases on right time.

From your eyes to kidney, most of your body organs become vulnerable to diseases once diabetes afflicts you. Diabetic nephropathy is a kidney dysfunction that may even result in kidney failure that is quite common among patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Similarly your eye's retina could be affected due to diabetes. The disease is called as diabetic retinopathy.

If you are diabetic you are very much prone to attain increased level of bad cholesterol that in turn may result in coronary artery disease. In fact a good number of diabetics every year die of cardiovascular complications. In order to prevent these complications, a diabetic must stick to the dietary restrictions. If you are diabetic, a little control over unhealthy food cravings could save your life.

High blood pressure is one such complication with which a diabetic often get afflicted. So, sometimes diabetics are needed to compliment their main medications with blood pressure medications.

A diabetic may also suffer from nerve damage. This malady is better known as diabetic neuropathy. The disease mainly damages peripheral nerves. In certain cases diabetics have been also found developing sexual impotency.

So, there could be n-number of complications that a diabetic could suffer from. Prevention from complications lies in effective diabetes control through medications and dietary measures.

Keep Your Diabetes Under Control

What are diabetes problems?

Too much glucose (sugar) in the blood for a long time can cause diabetes problems. This high blood glucose (also called blood sugar) can damage many parts of the body, such as the heart, blood vessels, eyes, and kidneys. Heart and blood vessel disease can lead to heart attacks and strokes. You can do a lot to prevent or slow down diabetes problems.

What should my blood glucose numbers be?

Keeping your blood glucose on target will prevent or delay diabetes problems. For most people, target blood glucose levels are:

Before meals > 90 to 130

1 to 2 hours after the start of a meal > Less than 180

Talk with your health care provider about what your blood glucose numbers should be. Print out this chart and record them.

You and your health care provider will agree on when you need to check your blood glucose using a blood glucose meter. You will do the checks yourself. Your health care provider can teach you how to use your meter.

Keep track of your blood glucose checks using the record page . Make copies yourself or ask your health care provider for a blood glucose record book. Your blood glucose check results will help you and your health care provider make a plan for keeping your blood glucose under control. Always bring your record book to your health care appointments so you can talk about reaching your glucose goals.

How can I find out what my average blood glucose is?

Ask your health care provider to do an A1C test. This blood test shows the average amount of glucose in your blood during the past 2 to 3 months. Have this test done at least twice a year. If your A1C result is not as good as it should be, your health care provider will do this test more often to see if it is improving as your treatment changes. Your A1C result plus your blood glucose meter results can show whether your blood glucose is under control.

Aim for a result below 7 percent. If your A1C test result is below 7 percent, then your blood glucose is in a desirable range and your diabetes treatment plan is working. The lower your A1C is, the lower your chance of getting eye, nerve, and kidney damage.

If your test result is more than 8 percent, you need a change in your diabetes plan. Your health care team can help you decide what part of your plan to change. You may need to change your meal plan, your diabetes medicines, or your exercise plan.

What should my blood pressure be?

Normal blood pressure will help prevent damage to your eyes, kidneys, heart, and blood vessels. Blood pressure is written with two numbers separated by a slash. For example: 120/70. The first number should be below 130 and the second number should be below 80. Keep your blood pressure as close to these numbers as you can. If you already have kidney disease, you may want even lower blood pressure to protect your kidneys.

Meal planning, medicines, and exercise can help you reach your blood pressure target.

What should my cholesterol be?

Normal cholesterol levels will help prevent heart disease and stroke, the biggest health problems for people with diabetes. Keeping cholesterol levels under control can also help with blood flow. Have your cholesterol level checked at least once a year. Meal planning, exercise, and medicines can help you reach your cholesterol targets:

Total cholesterol: under 200

LDL cholesterol: under 100

HDL cholesterol: above 40 (men) above 50 (women)

Triglycerides: under 150

What does smoking have to do with diabetes problems?

Smoking and diabetes are a dangerous combination. Smoking raises your risk for diabetes problems. If you quit smoking, you'll lower your risk for heart attack, stroke, nerve disease, and kidney disease. Your cholesterol and your blood pressure levels may improve. Your blood circulation will also improve. If you smoke, ask your health care provider for help in quitting.

Green Tea as a Diabetes Prevention and Treatment

In diabetes prevention, a diabetic person usually responds very nicely to diet and lifestyle changes.

You have to eat right, drink green tea everyday, and get regular exercise. I call it your diabetes nutrition plan.

There's absolutely no doubt that dietary changes and weight loss can have a major impact on diabetes treatment. If you just lose 10 pounds, for example, you may be able to decrease your insulin resistance. That's a significant breakthrough because insulin ushers blood sugar, or glucose, into your cells. In order for your cells to get the life-giving energy they need, they must accept rather than resist insulin.

How can drinking green tea help control an all-consuming disease like diabetes?
Green tea polyphenols have been found to be potent inhibitors of amylase. In recent study, it was shown that just one cup of green tea was found to inhibit 87% of amylase's activity. And if less sugar gets into the bloodstream, blood glucose levels will automatically be lowered.

Dietary supplements like antioxidants may help reverse deficiencies that have developed as a result of diabetes, protect your body from diabetes-related damage, improve your metabolism so you have more energy, and help to stabilize blood sugar.

Antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, are one of the most important diabetes treatment, studies confirmed.

Both these antioxidants can help prevent the major long-term complications of diabetes, such as blindness, kidney disease, and nerve damage due to high sugar levels.

Shortages of B vitamins also lead to nerve damage in the hands and feet. Some studies indicate that people with diabetes develop less of the numbness and tingling associated with diabetes-related nerve damage if they take supplemental B vitamins.

Green tea contains B-vitamins plus vitamins A, E as well as minerals, polyphenols, and catechins which are powerful antioxidants in the market today.

I hope my article on diabetes information is helpful to you or your loved one.

Supplies For Diabetes

Once you've finally come to terms with being diagnosed with diabetes, you'll need to get on with life and learn how to deal with the realities that come with this disease. One thing you'll need to do is to start keeping track of your blood sugar on a regular basis. Of course the type of diabetes you have will determine how you test the levels. Those who have Type I Diabetes should be sure to test three times daily. Pregnant women dealing with gestational diabetes and taking insulin should test twice each day. Those who have Type II Diabetes don't have to test, although doing the testing can help with proper blood sugar maintenance.

If you are going to self test, you'll need the right diabetes supplies. The supplies you need include test strips, a monitor device, and lancets. Also, you'll need your insulin supplies as well, which can include pens, syringes, and pumps. It is also convenient to have alcohol pads around. There are a variety of different monitors that you can pick from, from simple ones to very high tech and expensive ones. Today companies are working hard to develop a monitor that is pain free. Some of the new test models are almost pain free, since they allow users to get the blood from a place other than the tip of the finger. For those who have vision impairments, there are large screen monitors and even talking monitors.

Usually you'll find that today's models use test strips, which are papers coated with special chemicals. Lancets are used to prick the fingers in order to get the blood needed. Some monitors even have a memory on them, which helps you to check tests from the past to compare the numbers.

It can get expensive to test on a daily basis, especially for those who end up testing 5-10 times each day. There are some insurance companies that will cover these supplies, and some companies even provide diabetes supplies to needy people free of charge. Of course you need to make sure you have a prescription for them. Those who have diabetes can often get help from Medicare as well, even if they are not yet 65 years old. So, you may want to check out their site to see if you can get their help.

How To Improve Your Diabetes Treatment With Technology

For people new to diabetes it can be quite a daunting prospect to assimilate all the new information needed to control diabetes and safeguard your health. The fundamental principle underlying most diabetic treatment is understanding the impact that sugar will have on a persons blood glucose level. In order to control this the person is required to modify their eating and exercise behavior and monitor their blood. Diabetic software can help to monitor a persons blood more effectively and efficiently. Ultimately it can give the person more control of their diabetic condition. This article will look at some of the features of diabetic software and how it can help you.

Diabetic software comes in two broad groups. The first group is educational in nature. The aim is to teach people about controlling blood sugar levels. I would say this type of software is aimed at people who do not understand diabetes or have just been diagnosed with it. Children and parents of children with diabetes would also find these tools useful and instructive.

The most popular educational software is called AIDA. It is a simulator of a typical persons insulin usage and blood sugar levels over a day. Various variables can be entered into the simulator. These include the persons weight, their meal times and carbohydrate intake during the meal, their levels of short and long acting insulin and their kidney and liver conditions. With these variable the simulator will plot a graph of blood sugar level over the day. This can be instructive or can be used to model a persons real conditions (although the site says it is for educational purposes only and should not be considered as advice).

The other type of diabetic software is for monitoring an individuals blood readings over time. Most of these tools are on line and you have to register to use the software. In some cases the software is run by the particular company that produces the blood sugar meter that you are currently using.

The blood sugar meter is the equipment that you use to test your blood. You can plug the meter into your computer and all your readings will be downloaded and mapped into various types of graphs. You can select various variables and times to analyze. For example you could analyze your blood sugar level during exercise times. This would give you a pattern over time of whether your blood sugar level stays within an acceptable range (determined by your doctor). You can then plan ahead for future exercise.

Many of these sites will accept more than one type of meter reader and each one will offer a variety of reports that can be printer out or saved.

Diabetic software is useful in managing diabetes because it educates or analyzes your condition. This can make you more informed and better equipped to understand and treat the disease.

Diabetes and Your eyes

Diabetes can play havoc with your eyes, and sometimes there are no early sumptoms. So you may have no idea anything is wrong until your eyesight is in danger.

Here are the main eye problems that can be caused, or made worse, by diabetes.

Cataracts

These are often described as a clouding of the lens of the eye. They are treatable by surgery in most cases.

Glaucoma

Our eyes are largely made up of fluid, and when the pressure of that fluid builds up too much inside the eye, you have glaucoma. Left untreated, it can damage the optic nerves, and even lead to blindness.

Diabetic retinopathy

Lining the back of our eyes is light-sensitive tissue known as the retina. The retina contains very small blood vessels that can be damaged by diabetic retinopathy. Sometimes there are symptoms such as blurred vision, but often you won't even know anything is wrong until the condition is well advanced. In the worse case, it leads to blindness.

Early detection is the key to battling all of these conditions, and the best diagnostic tool available is the dilated eye examination. This is a test in which special eye drops temporarily enlarge your pupils, allowing the doctor to see the back of your eyes. This test (which is painless) can detect cataracts, glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy in their early, treatable stages.

Eyesight is precious, so if you have diabetes do yourself a favor and make an appointment for your dilated eye examination. And then do it again every year from now on.

Diabetes and Your Feet

We diabetics have to take special care of our feet, or we can find them troubled in
two ways: reduced blood circulation and nerve damage.

Here's what to look for and some prevention ideas.

Symptom:

If your feet are constantly cold, your legs are sore when you walk, or your feet hurt
in bed at night, you may be suffering from poor blood circulation. This, in turn, can
slow down the process of healing when you have cuts or other damage to your feet.

Prevention:

Staying physically active is one way to help improve your circulation. You also need
to control your blood fat and sugar levels, as well as your blood pressure. And of
course, don't smoke.

Symptom:

If your feet are numb, you have a burning sensation on the soles of your feet or pins
and needles in your feet, you have signs of possible nerve damage.

Foot nerves are the longest in our bodies and are therefore susceptible to damage
by diabetes. If these nerves are damaged, the feelings are lessened, so we could
have the cuts or blisters that can lead to ulcers, and we wouldn't even know about
it.

Prevention:

Check your feet regularly to be sure there are no signs of injury. If you develop
corns or calluses, have them treated immediately by a podiatrist. Wash and dry
carefully between your toes, and keep your nails trimmed and smooth.

Everyone likes to have their feet pampered, but for us diabetics it not only feels
good, it also prevents serious health problems in the future. So book that foot
massage now!