January 31, 2011

• Signs of Type II diabetes

  I realized this morning that it has been nearly 7 years since by diabetes diagnoses. I was talking to a newly-diagnosed diabetic yesterday, and we were discussing the signs that led us to believe we had a problem. The doctors believe I was diabetic for years before we discovered it. I was showing many of the signs, but they were brushed off as side effects of cancer treatments. So, in hoping to help someone else out, here are some signs that you might be diabetic:

  1. Frequent urination. This is one most people are familiar with. Your kidneys are trying to flush out the extra glucose in  your bloodstream, causing you to have to urinate more often.
  2. Increased thirst. Another symptom most people are familiar with. Because of the more frequent urination, you get dehydrated faster, causing you to be thirsty more and to have a dry mouth.
  3. Unexplained weight loss. Yeah, this never happened for me. I just ate more to make up for the fact that my cells weren't getting enough glucose for the energy.
  4. Increased hunger. As I said above, this one I had. Again, it's because your cells are being starved of the glucose they need, either because your pancreas isn't making enough, or in mose cases of Type II diabetes, your cells have grown resistant to the glucose and aren't accepting enough of it.
  5. Foot pain and numbness. I was having foot and leg cramps, especially in the middle of the night, before my diagnosis.
  6. Slow-healing wounds. These can be as little as a small cut or a bruise that heals very slowly.
  7. Frequent infections. Both yeast and bacteria multiply when blood sugars are high.
  8. Blurred vision. At the time of my diagnosis, I was just thinking I was needing new glasses. Some days they seemed fine and other days they were really blurry. The blurry vision is especially prevalent with the rapid changes in blood sugar that occur with uncontrolled diabetes.
  9. Mood swings. I went through terrible mood swings for years right after my cancer treatments. The doctors blamed it on anxiety from dealing with the cancer at first and gave me a stronger anti-depressent, and then they blamed it as a side effect of the Zolodex they were giving me to shut down my ovaries. It turned out to be from the extremes between high and low glucose. I still have days when my mood swings quickly, especially if my sugars drop very low, but this doesn't happen very often since I started controlling my blood sugars better.
  10. Acanthosis nigricans. (Say what???) This is a fancy doctor term for skin changes due to high glucose levels. The skin in soft areas like the back of your neck, crook of your elbows, behind the knees, under arms, groin, etc., because a darkened color with a more velvety texture. I had this sign, too, especially on the back of my neck along my hairline, but it got blamed on a skin rash that I get almost every year when the seasons change from hot to cold or back. This is more common with darker complected people, especially blacks and Hispanics.

   

   

  • 2:09 pm
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