Diabetes And Fatigue: Everything You Need To Know

Diabetes and Fatigue: Everything You Need To Know

What exactly is fatigue? Is it just being tired after working a long week or not getting enough sleep?
The answer is no.
Fatigue is excessive tiredness that makes carrying out simple tasks difficult and interferes with one or more life functions. Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Well imagine having a chronic illness along with the fatigue. Diabetes and fatigue have a strong relationship, and it can make a person’s life very difficult. The following article will discuss the relationship, along with ways to beat and reduce the risk of living with diabetes and fatigue.
What is diabetes fatigue?
As it was mentioned above, diabetes fatigue is an extreme tiredness that individuals with diabetes can experience. It is a tiredness that disrupts a person’s life and makes it difficult to function. It is very common, and studies have shown that 85% of those with diabetes experience fatigue.
Some signs of fatigue include:
Dizziness
Irritability
Headache
Inability to concentrate
Problems remembering things
Blurry vision
Slowed reflexes and muscle weakness
Is feeling fatigue a sign/symptom of diabetes?
Feeling fatigued is definitely a symptom of diabetes. However, fatigue can also be a sign or symptom of many other diseases, so it is important that you talk to your doctor about any problems that you are having.
I advise reading the following:
Reactive hypoglycemia, a term used to define the crash that a person gets after eating a lot of sugar and carbs, can be an early sign of diabetes. In order for the body to use the sugars and carbs that are consumed for fuel, each molecule must be p Continue reading

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New way to BEAT diabetes: Single operation could cure Type 2 disease, says UK doctors

The procedure – using a plastic liner in the gut – either cleared the condition or made its effect much milder.
It could also end the need for painful daily insulin injections.
Results from the ground-breaking treatment have been so encouraging experts last night called for surgery to be “fully recognised” as an option for Type 2 diabetes.
Under the procedure, patients have the plastic liner fitted into the stomach to stop the walls of the upper gut coming into contact with food. It blocks key hormones entering the blood.
Professor Francesco Rubino, who is leading the research at King’s College Hospital in London, said: “In many patients, blood sugar levels go back to normal within days.”
The trials offer fresh hope to the four million people living with lifestyle driven Type 2 diabetes.
Prof Rubino added: “About 50 per cent of patients are diabetes free after these procedures. The remaining people demonstrate big improvements of blood sugar control and can drastically reduce their dependence on insulin or other medication.”
Fri, August 19, 2016
Diabetes is a common life-long health condition. There are 3.5 million people diagnosed with diabetes in the UK and an estimated 500,000 who are living undiagnosed with the condition.
The trials are taking place at King’s and University College Hospital and City Hospital in Birmingham, Britain’s “diabetes capital”.
The flexible plastic stomach sleeves were developed to mimic the effects of a gastric bypass without surgery and have been approved for clinical use in Europe and South America.
In British trials Continue reading

Gestational diabetes (GD)

What is gestational diabetes?
Gestational diabetes (GD) happens when you have too much sugar (glucose) in your blood during pregnancy.
Your blood sugar levels can go up when your body isn’t producing enough of a hormone called insulin. Insulin helps:
the cells in your body to get energy from blood sugar
your body to store any blood sugar that isn’t needed
During pregnancy, hormones make it harder for your body to use insulin efficiently. So your body has to make extra insulin, especially from mid-pregnancy onwards.
If your body can't make enough extra insulin, your blood sugar levels will rise and you may develop GD.
Having too much sugar in your blood can cause problems for you and your baby, so you’ll have extra care during your pregnancy. On average, GD affects one mum-to-be in 20.
GD goes away after your baby is born, because it's a condition that's only caused by pregnancy.
The other types of diabetes, which are not caused by pregnancy, are type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes.
Some women have diabetes, without realising it, before they become pregnant. If this happens to you, it will be diagnosed as GD during your pregnancy.
What are the symptoms of gestational diabetes?
You probably won't notice any symptoms if you have GD. That's why you'll be monitored by your midwife, and offered a test if she thinks you're at risk. GD symptoms are like normal pregnancy symptoms, and easy to miss.
By the time you have clear symptoms, your blood sugar levels may be worryingly high (hyperglycaemia) . Symptoms of hyperglycaemia include:
feeling more thirsty
needing to wee more o Continue reading

Blood Sugar Monitoring

What Do the Numbers Tell You?
“I must admit that I stopped checking my blood sugar,” Dave said. “I used to stick myself and write the numbers in a book, but I had no idea what they meant. I’d eat the same thing and get different numbers. Finally, I just gave up.”
Sound familiar? Many people dutifully check their blood glucose levels but have no idea what the numbers mean. Part of the problem is that blood glucose levels constantly fluctuate and are influenced by many factors. The other part of the problem is that no two people are alike. A blood glucose reading of 158 mg/dl in two different people might have two different explanations.
Most people know that their bodies need glucose to fuel their activities and that certain foods or large quantities of almost any food will raise blood glucose. That’s the easy part. But just as cars require a complicated system of fuel pumps, ignition timing, batteries, pistons, and a zillion other things to convert gasoline into motion, our bodies rely on an intricate system to convert glucose into energy.
Back to basics
Insulin is a hormone secreted by the pancreas that helps regulate the way the body uses glucose. Its main job is to allow glucose in the blood to enter cells of the body where it can be used for energy. In people who don’t have diabetes, the pancreas changes how much insulin it releases depending on blood glucose levels. Eating a chocolate bar? The pancreas releases more insulin. Sleeping? The pancreas releases less insulin until the wee hours of the morning when the hormones secreted in the early morning natu Continue reading

Type 1 diabetes misdiagnosed in many adults

Many might think type 1 diabetes is a "disease of childhood", but research, published in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, has found it has similar prevalence in adults.
More than 40% of Britons diagnosed with the condition are over 30.
Many of these are initially diagnosed with type 2, and receiving the wrong treatment can be life-threatening.
Charity Diabetes UK is calling for doctors not to rule out the possibility a patient over 30 might have type 1.
'Banging my head against a wall'
Helen Philibin, a mother of two from Torquay, who was 40, slim and active when she was diagnosed.
She said: "Having the wrong diagnosis was extremely frustrating. I just knew it wasn't right.
"I'm always running around with my two young kids and I walk the dog every day."
She visited her GP complaining of extreme thirst. A blood test strongly indicated she had diabetes.
Her doctor diagnosed her with type 2 and prescribed metformin, the most commonly-used drug for the condition. She was also sent on a course to learn about lifestyle factors including a low-sugar diet.
"All the other people on the course were in their mid-60s and overweight. I was 5ft 10in and nine-and-a-half stone. I stood out like a sore thumb," said Helen.
"When I raised it with nurses or my GP, I was told that type 1 diabetes is always diagnosed in childhood, so I had to be type 2. I felt like I was banging my head against a wall."
Helen changed her diet to get better blood sugar control - but she began vomiting up to four times a week.
"It was horrible," she said. "Even a single piece of toast would send my blood sugar Continue reading