Nerve damage (neuropathy): One of the most common diabetes complications, nerve damage can cause numbness and pain. Nerve damage most often affects the feet and legs but can also affect your digestion, blood vessels, and heart.
Common diabetes health complications include heart disease, chronic kidney disease, nerve damage, and other problems with feet, oral health, vision, hearing, and mental health. Learn how to prevent or delay these diabetes complications and how to improve overall health. How to be heart-healthy if you have diabetes.
The most common early complication of diabetes, related to insulin treatment, is hypoglycemia. Mild hypoglycemic reactions, consisting of headache, tremors, abdominal pain, or mood changes, are considered a part of tight control.
Indeed, myocardial infarction is the leading cause of death among individuals with diabetes mellitus.
Amongst those who are currently 65 years old, the average man can expect to live until 83 years old and the average woman to live until 85 years old. People with type 1 diabetes have traditionally lived shorter lives, with life expectancy having been quoted as being reduced by over 20 years.
People With Diabetes Can Live Longer by Meeting Their Treatment Goals. Life expectancy can be increased by 3 years or in some cases as much as 10 years. At age 50, life expectancy- the number of years a person is expected to live- is 6 years shorter for people with type 2 diabetes than for people without it.
About diabetes – long-term effects
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.
Once diagnosed, it's very important for diabetics to maintain euglycemia (i.e., a normal level of blood glucose), since long-term hyperglycemia can lead to multiple complications including heart attack, stroke, blindness, neuropathy and extremity infections leading to amputations.
For people with diabetes, blood sugar can spike. Dehydration—less water in your body means your blood sugar is more concentrated. Nose spray—some have chemicals that trigger your liver to make more blood sugar. Gum disease—it's both a complication of diabetes and a blood sugar spiker.
Symptoms of uncontrolled diabetes include extreme fatigue, frequent urination, excessive thirst or hunger, unintended weight loss, and blurred vision.
“Post-meal blood sugars of 140 mg/dl [milligrams per deciliter] and higher, and fasting blood sugars over 100 mg/dl [can] cause permanent organ damage and cause diabetes to progress,” Ruhl writes.
It is common for most people with diabetes to begin to develop complications after having diabetes for a number of years. With good diabetes control and living a healthy, active lifestyle, it is possible for people to go a number of decades complication free.
Diabetes symptoms
Thirsty - being really thirsty. Tired - feeling more tired than usual. Thinner - losing weight without trying to. Genital itching or thrush.
These are some signs that your type 2 diabetes is getting worse. Other signs like a tingling sensation, numbness in your hand or feet, high blood pressure, increase in appetite, fatigue, blurred vision, trouble seeing at night, and more shouldn't be overlooked.
Eye diseases that can affect people with diabetes include diabetic retinopathy, macular edema (which usually develops along with diabetic retinopathy), cataracts, and glaucoma. All can lead to vision loss, but early diagnosis and treatment can go a long way toward protecting your eyesight.
Foot problems are common in people with diabetes. They can happen over time when high blood sugar damages the nerves and blood vessels in the feet. The nerve damage, called diabetic neuropathy, can cause numbness, tingling, pain, or a loss of feeling in your feet.
Even if your diabetes has been well controlled for years, the condition can still worsen over time, meaning, you may have to adjust your treatment plan more than once.
Untreated Type 2 diabetes can lead to a range of life-threatening health conditions. Diabetes requires lifelong management.
Some people don't notice any symptoms at all. Type 2 diabetes usually starts when you're an adult, though more and more children and teens are developing it. Because symptoms are hard to spot, it's important to know the risk factors for type 2 diabetes. Make sure to visit your doctor if you have any of them.