The final stages of diabetes involve severe, long-term complications affecting major organs, leading to conditions like end-stage renal disease, blindness (diabetic retinopathy), severe nerve damage (neuropathy) causing amputations, heart attacks, strokes, and diabetic coma, with symptoms including extreme fatigue, confusion, severe dehydration, and loss of consciousness. These stages aren't a sudden progression but outcomes of years of uncontrolled blood sugar damaging blood vessels throughout the body.
The end-stage diabetes is a serious complication that occurs in people who have diabetes for a long time. The complications include kidney problems, heart disease, and nerve damage. Older adults are likely to experience end-stage diabetes due to difficulty in managing diabetes.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD), where the heart and blood vessels are negatively impacted, is the number one cause of death in people living with diabetes, resulting in twice as many deaths in people with diabetes than those without.
Signs that your diabetes may be getting worse
A fasting blood sugar level from 100 to 125 mg/dL (5.6 to 6.9 mmol/L) is considered prediabetes. If it's 126 mg/dL (7 mmol/L) or higher on two separate tests, you have diabetes. Glucose tolerance test. For this test, you fast overnight.
Blood sugar readings between 180 mg/dL and 250 mg/dL are considered high blood glucose or hyperglycemia. A reading of 250 mg/dL or higher is dangerous. This severe high blood sugar requires emergency medical treatment. Two or more readings of 300 mg/dL or higher in sequence are very dangerous.
Contact Your Doctor Immediately
If a second test confirms your blood sugar is over 400 mg/dL, call your doctor or endocrinologist right away. Follow the specific treatment plan they have given you for high blood sugar, which may include taking extra insulin or drinking more water, while you wait for their guidance.
Over time, high blood sugar can cause these blood vessels to get narrow and clogged. As your kidneys get less blood, less waste and fluid is taken out of your body. Kidney disease that is caused by diabetes is called “diabetic kidney disease.” It is the number one cause of kidney failure in the United States.
Signs of low blood glucose include:
Over time, high blood glucose levels can damage the body's organs. Possible long-term effects include damage to large (macrovascular) and small (microvascular) blood vessels, which can lead to heart attack, stroke, and problems with the kidneys, eyes, gums, feet and nerves.
Diabetic ketoacidosis.
This process forms toxic acids known as ketones. If you have ketones (measured in blood or urine) and high blood sugar, the condition is called diabetic ketoacidosis. If it's not treated, it can lead to a diabetic coma. Diabetic ketoacidosis is most common in people who have type 1 diabetes.
Diabetes Burnout refers to when someone is fed up with dealing with diabetes. They might have problems with their diabetes or problems in other areas of life that get in the way of diabetes care. In burnout the person usually neglects their diabetes care and feels they can't cope with it.
In the United States, diabetes is the eighth leading cause of death. A large number of people with diabetes will die from a heart attack or stroke. However, it's important to know that you can live a healthy life with diabetes.
Having diabetes predisposes people to ischaemic heart disease, which is a key mechanism. In addition, diabetes-specific factors such as hypoglycaemia and cardiac autonomic neuropathy may increase the chances of an irregular heartbeat and sudden cardiac death.
End-Of-Life Signs, Symptoms & Timeline
EMERGENCY – You are in the danger zone if you have:
Blood glucose that is still less than 4 mmol/L after 3 attempts to treat low blood sugar. Blood glucose that is greater than 20 mmol/L for more than 8 hours and you are symptomatic (if you have Type 2 Diabetes).
Untreated diabetes can lead to severe complications and death from high or low blood sugar. People with diabetes are twice as likely to die from heart disease as those without it. You can keep your blood sugar under control to lower your risk of diabetic complications.
For some people, the dying process may last weeks. For others, it may last a few days or hours. A dying person's experience may be influenced by their illness or medications, but certain signs and symptoms are common.
High blood glucose levels can also cause acute hyperglycaemic emergencies (Deed et al. 2018). These emergencies include: Ketoacidosis which is a life-threatening complication characterised by hyperglycaemia and high levels of blood acids (ketones) which is mostly found in people with type 1 diabetes.
The first organs affected by diabetes are often those with a rich supply of small blood vessels. High levels of blood sugar tend to damage the delicate vessels in the kidneys and eyes first, increasing the risk of kidney disease and impacting eye health.
High blood sugar levels can cause the body to produce more urine, leading to frequent bathroom trips that interrupt sleep. This constant disruption can lead to fragmented sleep, leaving individuals feeling tired and unrested in the morning.
Symptoms of hyperglycaemia
Dawn phenomenon happens when hormones your body naturally makes in the early morning increase your blood sugar. Dawn phenomenon only affects people with diabetes. It's a common cause of high blood sugar (hyperglycemia) in the morning.
Move after eating
Exercising or being active soon after eating will also lower your blood sugar in many ways. First of all, the glucose that doesn't enter the bloodstream can be used for muscle use during exercise. Exercise also diverts blood flow away from the intestines, reducing glucose absorption.
This type of metabolic imbalance is very dangerous. Those affected can have extremely high blood sugar levels exceeding 600 mg/dl (33.3 mmol/l) or even 1000 mg/dl (55.5 mmol/l).