Diabetes: Protect Your Feet And Legs

Diabetes: Protect Your Feet and Legs

If you have diabetes, you are more likely than people without this disorder to develop leg and foot problems. Diabetes can destroy nerves and cause you to have poor circulation. Left unchecked, these complications can lead to amputation. But there's a lot you can do to prevent that from happening.
How Diabetes Causes Limb Problems
First, it's important to understand what causes these diabetes complications. According to Marilyn Tan, MD, an endocrinologist and the clinic chief of the Stanford Endocrine Clinic in California, risk factors include poor circulation from atherosclerotic peripheral arterial disease, poor wound healing, and uncontrolled blood sugar increases, which increases the risk of infection. “Think of sugar as fuel for bacteria and fungus,” says Dr. Tan.
Researchers also know that high blood glucose levels can cause nerve damage called diabetic neuropathy. The damage can occur in any part of your body, but it is most common in your arms and legs, with the lower extremities affected first. This type of nerve damage is known as peripheral neuropathy. Some people have no symptoms, while others experience numbness, tingling, burning, sharp pain, cramps, extreme sensitivity when touched, and a loss of coordination and balance.
When you have peripheral neuropathy, small sores can go unnoticed because of the numbness — you simply don’t feel them. Left untreated, these little problems can become major infections that invade the bones. What’s more, poor circulation from diabetes means any ulcers and infections are harder to heal. If an infection invades your Continue reading

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10 Life-Saving Things You Must Do If You Have Diabetes

Be first on line for your flu shot
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Any infection, including the flu, can wreak havoc on blood sugar levels and diabetes control, according to Joseph A. Aloi, MD, the section chief of endocrinology and metabolism at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "If you're living with diabetes, infections can lead to more complications, and if you are hospitalized, your hospital stay will be longer than people without diabetes, so the key is to prevent infections in the first place." Get your flu shot and get it early, he adds. Flu season in the United States can begin as early as October and last as late as May. Also talk to your doctor about shots for pneumonia and Hepatitis B prevention. "Wash your hands. Wash your hands. Wash your hands," adds Davida F. Kruger, a nurse and diabetes expert at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, and the author of The Diabetes Travel Guide. "If you want to stay healthy, carry hand sanitizer with you wherever you go in case you can't access a sink." (Find out how you're probably washing your hands all wrong.)
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See your eye doctor yearly for a comprehensive dilated eye exam. "If we catch eye changes early, we can prevent further damage," Dr. Aloi says. "Diabetes is still the leading cause of adult blindness and it is largely preventable." Unfortunately, this message doesn't seem to be getting through. Some 58 percent of people with diabetes did not have regular follow-up eye exams, according to research presented at the 2016 annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in Chicago. Thes Continue reading

How to Help Your Body Reverse Diabetes

Diabetes rates are rising, in fact it is now considered an “epidemic” in the medical community. The American Diabetes Association reports that:
23.6 million Americans have diabetes
57 million Americans are pre-diabetic
1.6 new cases of diabetes are reported each year
For those over age 60, almost 1 in 4 have diabetes
Diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death
Diabetes increases heart attack risk and 68% of diabetes related death certificates report heart related problems
75% of adults with diabetes will develop high blood pressure
Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness, kidney failure and nervous system disorders
Diabetes costs $174 billion annually
Diabetes is a well-established problem and a multi-billion dollar industry. It is medically characterized by Fasting Blood Glucose higher than 126 mg/dL , which ranges between 100-125 mg/dL are considered pre-diabetic and ranges below 99 mg/dL are considered normal. Studies are finding that a fasting blood glucose below 83 mg/dL is actually a better benchmark, as risk of heart disease begins to increase at anything above that.
IMPORTANT: There is a difference between Type 1 diabetes (an autoimmune condition) and Type 2 diabetes (lifestyle related). This article refers specifically to Type 2 diabetes.
Some medical professionals use an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT) to test for diabetes. If you’ve ever been pregnant and had to drink the sickeningly sweet sugar cocktail and then have blood drawn, you are familiar with this one. Basically, a patient is given 50-75 grams of glucose in concentrated solution and his blood Continue reading

Does Eating Too Much Sugar Cause Diabetes?

Diabetes is a group of metabolic diseases characterized by high blood sugar either because of the inability of the body to produce enough insulin or the inability to respond to the insulin so produced. It is classified as follows: Type 1, Type 2 and Gestational Diabetes Mellitus.
Glucose is the primary energy source in humans and its levels are majorly regulated by pancreatic insulin. Insulin facilitates the breakdown of glucose and its entry into respiring cells and tissues.
In Type 1 diabetes, the body fails to produce insulin and requires injected insulin. People suffering from Type 1 diabetes face daily challenges of monitoring glucose levels, controlling eating habits, exercising and insulin administration.
In Type 2 diabetes, cells fail to use insulin properly (insulin resistance) which may be combined with an absolute insulin deficiency. Type 1 is observed more frequently in children and adolescents while Type 2, which account for more than 90% of the diabetes cases worldwide, is commonly detected in adults.
Gestational Diabetes Mellitus currently occurs in 5% of the pregnancies and its prevalence is expected to rise along with the incidence of worldwide obesity. Pregnancies suffering from Gestational Diabetes Mellitus are at a greater risk of other complications like pre-eclampsia, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disorders, Type 2 diabetes and gestational hypertension. Offspring of these women are also predisposed to conditions like obesity, Type 2 diabetes and the metabolic syndrome.
Other forms of diabetes include congenital diabetes caused due to genetic defec Continue reading

The most important things to know about diabetes and alcohol

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Tips & Tricks
We recently held our annual mySugr holiday celebration. What a good opportunity to talk about drinking alcohol with diabetes and the effect on blood sugar, right?
Reviewed for accuracy and updated December 18, 2017 — SKJ
Party time!
You can probably imagine it. Some snacks to nibble on, a live DJ spinning the (digital) wheels of steel, and some tasty adult beverages. In a situation like that, It’s all too easy to get caught up in the atmosphere and not think about your blood sugar. That’s totally natural – who wants to think about diabetes when you’re having a good time? I certainly don’t. But does drinking alcohol affect your diabetes and blood sugar? Is it something to be concerned about?
Pay Respect!
Here’s the deal. If you don’t pay some attention to alcohol and learn how it interacts with your diabetes, it will stop your party in one way or another, either during the dance-off or perhaps more commonly, hours later when you’re sound asleep and dreaming about your fancy moves. Cruelly, that’s when you’re least expecting it and when you’re at your most vulnerable.
Having diabetes is no reason to avoid drinking if it’s something you’d like to do. But you should understand how it works so you can do so safely. I’m not personally a big drinker, but I’ve done some digging and hope to share a few bits of useful information to help keep you safe.
We’re all different, but basics are basic…
One of the most important things I can share is that we’re all different, especially when it comes to our diabetes. Many pe Continue reading