What Causes Diabetes Fatigue?

Fatigue is one of the most common disabling diabetes symptoms. Diabetes fatigue can disrupt and interfere with all aspects of daily living.
What causes diabetes fatigue, and why is it so common?
We’ve written about fatigue before and received tons of great comments on those posts. But this time let’s go deeper and find the whole range of causes and solutions, even if it takes a few weeks. Hopefully, everyone will find something that might help them, because this is a serious problem.
For example, Melanie wrote, “[Fatigue] really takes a toll on my family and things we can do. I just want to have the energy to play with my son and to do things around the house or with friends…I can’t drive more than 30 minutes because my husband is afraid I will fall asleep…and wreck [the car]. (I have dozed while driving before.)”
Maria commented, “Fatigue is a constant and I have had to learn to do only what I can. I don’t push myself anymore as I pay for it dearly. I get tired of explaining why I don’t feel good, don’t want to do anything. Some understand and some don’t.” And Jan wrote, “I sleep from midnight to noon each day. Then I get depressed because I wasted half a day.”
Because of my multiple sclerosis (MS), I live with fatigue sometimes, and I know how limiting it is. I know how difficult it can be to manage. There are more than 15 known causes for fatigue. It helps to figure out what is causing yours, so you can address it. Here are some possibilities.
First, diabetes can directly cause fatigue with high or low blood sugar levels.
• High blood gluc Continue reading

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Understanding the Hidden Dangers of Diabetes

Diabetes is a progressive disease that can cause many serious complications. Chronically elevated blood sugar levels can wreak havoc on your body. The good news is that managing diabetes and keeping your blood sugars controlled can help to prevent or or delay potential complications. Whether your diabetes is in good control or not, it is important to know what these complications are so that you can identify them and seek treatment right away.
Some of the more well-known complications are nerve damage (neuropathy), such as peripheral neuropathy which is characterized by numbness, tingling, and pain in the hands and feet, kidney failure (nephropathy) and vision problems (retinopathy). Keeping your blood sugars, weight, blood pressure and getting routine check-ups by specialists can help you to prevent these types of complications. Additionally, there are some other types complications of diabetes that you may not be aware of.
Skin Complications
Having diabetes can make you more susceptible to disease, including diseases of the skin. In fact, skin disorders are sometimes one of the first noticeable signs of diabetes.
You might be more at risk for fungal infections, bacterial infections, and itchy skin. Other disorders of the skin are more exclusive to diabetes. They include blisters, atherosclerosis, digital sclerosis, and eruptive xanthomatosis.
Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease
If you have diabetes, your risk of developing heart disease—coronary artery disease (CAD) in particular is twice as that of the rest of the population. High blood pressure and increased risk of s Continue reading

Diabetes doctors: Which specialists treat diabetes?

Diabetes is a condition that affects a person's blood sugar levels and can require various treatments. Understanding which doctors help treat diabetes can simplify the process, making it less stressful.
This article helps people with diabetes to understand the key differences between the various diabetes specialists.
It also covers some common guidelines to follow for visiting each of these experts, to ensure you get the most out of your treatment.
Which doctors help with treating diabetes?
There are a number of diabetes specialists who may be involved in treating someone with this common condition.
As each of these specialists has a slightly different role, there are some key things to be aware of before seeing each one.
General care physicians
A general care physician will often help in the treatment of people with diabetes. Regular check-ups will usually be carried out once every 3 to 4 months.
If there is anything outside their area of expertise, a general care physician will frequently send an individual to an endocrinologist first of all.
Endocrinologists
The most common specialists in the field of diabetes are endocrinologists.
Endocrinologists specialize in the glands of the body, and the hormones that are produced from those glands.
The pancreas is a gland that comes under the spotlight when managing diabetes. It produces insulin that helps regulate blood sugar. In the case of people with diabetes, insulin is either not produced or does not work properly.
People with type 1 diabetes are put under the care of an endocrinologist most of the time. People with type 2 d Continue reading

Diabetes in Dogs: Symptoms, Causes, & Treatment

Diabetes is a chronic disease that can affect dogs and cats and other animals (including apes, pigs, and horses) as well as humans. Although diabetes can’t be cured, it can be managed very successfully.
Diabetes mellitus, or “sugar diabetes,” is the type of diabetes seen most often in dogs. It is a metabolism disorder. Metabolism refers to how the body converts food to energy.
To understand what diabetes is, it helps to understand some of this process.
The conversion of food nutrients into energy to power the body’s cells involves an ongoing interplay of two things:
• Glucose: essential fuel for the body’s cells. When food is digested, the body breaks down some of the nutrients into glucose, a type of sugar that is a vital source of energy for certain body cells and organs. The glucose is absorbed from the intestines into the blood, which then transports the glucose throughout the body.
• Insulin: in charge of fuel delivery. Meanwhile, an important organ next to the stomach called the pancreas releases the hormone insulin into the body. Insulin acts as a “gatekeeper” that tells cells to grab glucose and other nutrients out of the bloodstream and use them as fuel.
What is diabetes?
With diabetes, the glucose-insulin connection isn’t working as it should. Diabetes occurs in dogs in two forms:
• Insulin-deficiency diabetes—This is when the dog’s body isn’t producing enough insulin. This happens when the pancreas is damaged or otherwise not functioning properly. Dogs with this type of diabetes need daily shots to replace the missing insulin. This is Continue reading

High Cost Of Diabetes Drugs Often Goes Overlooked

When it comes to treating chronic conditions, diabetes drugs aren't nearly as sexy as say, Sovaldi, last year's breakthrough hepatitis C drug that offers a cure for the chronic liver infection at a price approaching six figures.
Yet an estimated 29 million people in the U.S. have diabetes — about 10 times the number of people with hepatitis C — and many of them will take diabetes drugs for the rest of their lives. Cost increases for both old and new drugs are forcing many to scramble to pay for them.
"Every week I see patients who can't afford their drugs," says Dr. Joel Zonszein, an endocrinologist who's director of the clinical diabetes center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.
Although some of the top-selling diabetes drugs like metformin are modestly priced generics, new brand-name drugs continue to be introduced that act in different ways to control blood sugar. They may be more effective and have fewer side effects, but the advances come at a price.
For the fourth year in a row, per person spending on diabetes drugs in 2014 was higher than it was for any other class of traditional drug, according to the Express Scripts 2014 drug trend report. Fewer than half of the prescriptions filled for diabetes treatments were generic.
"The cost of diabetes treatment has been increasing pretty rapidly," says Dr. Glen Stettin, senior vice president for clinical, research and new solutions at Express Scripts, which manages the pharmacy benefits for many companies.
An analysis of per capita health care spending in 2013 for people with diabetes found average costs were Continue reading