Warning Signs And Symptoms Of Diabetes And How You Can Treat It

Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy needed for daily life

Everyone needs to have insulin in order to convert foods that contain sugar and starches into energy.  You need energy to move about every day.  If your body does not produce enough insulin to do this, you may be diagnosed with diabetes.  There are so many people today who walk around undiagnosed with this disease.  It might be because they don’t know what some of the warning signs and symptoms are.

Listed in this article are some of the warning signs and symptoms to beware of:

Are you constantly thirsty and don’t feel like you’re getting enough to drink?  This could be a symptom that diabetes is affecting you.  The more you drink, the more you have to go to the bathroom.  If you’re urinating frequently, additional water is being removed from your blood.  The more water being removed, the more chance your body will be dehydrated.  The excessive thirst comes in because you have to drink more in place of the water that you’ve flushed out of your system.

In addition to this, going to the bathroom every hour certainly is not a party, either.  This can happen when you have glucose overload in your system.  The less insulin available, the kidneys can't work to get more glucose in your bloodstream.  They work overtime to remove water from the bloodstream.  When this happens, your bladder stays full and you keep going to the bathroom.  Certainly, this can be frustrating for anyone.

Usually, when people try to lose weight, they have to really work at it.  Unfortunately, with diabetes, you don’t have to do as much, if much of anything.  Weight loss with diabetes usually happens with people that are in the Type 1 category.  What happens is insulin production has ceased.   Since the cells in your body are not receiving glucose, it has a break down.  The muscle tissue and energy used for fat become depleted.  Losing weight is good, but not in the way it’s described here.

Other signs and symptoms of diabetes include feeling constantly weak and tired.  If you start to feel numbness or tingling in your extremities (feet, legs, hands) this could also be a sign that you have diabetes.  In addition to that, if you notice your eyesight is blurred, dry or itchy skin or cuts that take an extended length of time to heal, those could be figured in as signs or symptoms of diabetes.
 
The only way you will know for sure if you have it is to see your physician.  They will run a series of tests to determine if you have it.  If you do, your physician will determine what steps to take for treatment and control of diabetes. 

It is very important that you follow the recommendations of your physician.  If you don’t, you could jeopardize your own health.

In addition to prescribing medicine to treat your diabetes, your physician may suggest that you change your diet plan.  This is one of the natural ways to treat your diabetes. 

Your diet plan will consist of eating fruits, vegetable, milk, meats, starches and fats.  There are certain serving sizes that are recommended that list the amount of calories, fats, proteins and carbohydrates you should consume. 

There are probably some things within these groups that you don’t want to eat, but you may have to if you want to control your diabetes without having to take a lot of medicines.  You may have to squint and swallow as though you were eating something like asparagus that you may think tastes horrible. 

You will also have to monitor foods that contain carbohydrates.  As much as you may love pasta, rice and potatoes, you’ll have to cut back on some of that.  If you’re not sure about how much you should consume, your physician or dietitian can help you.  It’s better to stick with foods like fruits, whole wheat grain items, and vegetables that have fiber.  There are probably people out there who can’t stand the thought of eating lima beans, but fortunately, for your health’s sake, you should eat them.

Even if you have a busy life, take a few minutes of your day and exercise.  Exercising keeps you in shape and is essential for circulation.  Being a couch potato won’t help you at all.  You should be cautioned, however, not to overdo it.  Doing so may cause your blood glucose to dip under the normal level. 

The key with diabetes is daily monitoring of what you eat and testing your blood glucose level.  If you do these religiously, then you’ll be able to live a healthy and happy life.