What Happens When You Go Into A Diabetic Coma?

What Happens When You Go into a Diabetic Coma?

Diabetes comes along with a lot of complications and another such life-threatening condition that can affect both type 1 and type 2 diabetes patients is a diabetic coma. It is a situation, where the person although alive, cannot respond to any sights, sounds, or any other types of physical simulations. In this article, we shall know more about diabetes coma and what happens when a person slips into one. So, join in for the article “What Happens When You Go into a Diabetic Coma?”
What is Diabetic Coma?
Diabetic coma is a life-threatening condition caused due to either very high or very low glucose levels in a diabetes patient. It affects patients with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The major risk factors for this type of condition increases when you are on an insulin pump, have fallen sick and the blood sugar has risen dramatically, you have had a heart failure or a kidney-related disease, you have the habit of drinking too much of alcohol, or even when you have failed to manage your diabetes effectively.
In the following paragraphs, we shall study the symptoms and causes of this fatal condition in detail.
Symptoms of Diabetic Coma
Let us now look into the signs and symptoms which help us understand that a person is slipping into diabetes coma. As mentioned above, it can occur either in cases of hyperglycemia or very high levels of blood glucose or in the case of hypoglycemia or low levels of blood glucose. So, let us look into the symptoms of each:
Signs of hyperglycemia or high blood sugar
The patient experiences high level of thirst and urination
Stomach pain is ano Continue reading

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Home blood glucose test: How to test for diabetes at home

Home blood glucose testing is a safe and affordable way to detect diabetes before it becomes a health issue.
Diabetes, especially in the early stages, does not always cause symptoms. Almost half of people with the disease don't know they have it.
For people already diagnosed with diabetes, a simple diabetes home test is vital in the management of blood sugar levels. It could even be lifesaving.
How to test for diabetes at home
Home blood glucose monitoring is designed to offer a picture of how the body is processing glucose.
A doctor might recommend testing at three different times, and often over the course of several days:
Morning fasting reading: This provides information about blood glucose levels before eating or drinking anything. Morning blood glucose readings give a baseline number that offers clues about how the body processes glucose during the day.
Before a meal: Blood glucose before a meal tends to be low, so high blood glucose readings suggest difficulties managing blood sugar.
After a meal: Post meal testing gives a good idea about how your body reacts to food, and if sugar is able to efficiently get into the cells for use. Blood glucose readings after a meal can help diagnose gestational diabetes, which happens during pregnancy. Most doctors recommend testing about 2 hours after a meal.
For the most accurate testing, people should log the food they eat, and notice trends in their blood glucose readings. Whether you consume a high or low carbohydrate meal, if your blood sugar reading is higher than normal afterwards, this suggests the body is having difficulty Continue reading

Myth: sugar causes diabetes

We all know the stereotype – if you’ve got diabetes, you must have eaten too much sugar. But, with this sweet ingredient found in so much of our food – and, recently, so many of our newspapers – what’s the truth about sugar? And how does it affect diabetes?
What is sugar?
Sugar is found naturally in fruit, vegetables and dairy foods. It’s also added to food and drink by food manufacturers, or by ourselves at home. The debate about sugar and health is mainly around the ‘added sugars’. This includes:
table sugar that we add to our hot drinks or breakfast cereal
caster sugar, used in baking
sugars hidden in sauces, ready meals, cakes and drinks.
Does sugar cause diabetes?
There are two main types of diabetes – Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
In Type 1 diabetes, the insulin producing cells in your pancreas are destroyed by your immune system. No amount of sugar in your diet – or anything in your lifestyle – has caused or can cause you to get Type 1 diabetes.
With Type 2 diabetes, though we know sugar doesn’t directly causes Type 2 diabetes, you are more likely to get it if you are overweight. You gain weight when you take in more calories than your body needs, and sugary foods and drinks contain a lot of calories.
And it's important to add that fatty foods and drinks are playing a part in our nation's expanding waistline.
So you can see if too much sugar is making you put on weight, then you are increasing your risk of getting Type 2 diabetes. But Type 2 diabetes is complex, and sugar is unlikely to be the only reason the condition develops.
If I have diabet Continue reading

Diabetes and Hypertension: A Position Statement by the American Diabetes Association

Hypertension is common among patients with diabetes, with the prevalence depending on type and duration of diabetes, age, sex, race/ethnicity, BMI, history of glycemic control, and the presence of kidney disease, among other factors (1–3). Furthermore, hypertension is a strong risk factor for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), heart failure, and microvascular complications. ASCVD—defined as acute coronary syndrome, myocardial infarction (MI), angina, coronary or other arterial revascularization, stroke, transient ischemic attack, or peripheral arterial disease presumed to be of atherosclerotic origin—is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality for individuals with diabetes and is the largest contributor to the direct and indirect costs of diabetes. Numerous studies have shown that antihypertensive therapy reduces ASCVD events, heart failure, and microvascular complications in people with diabetes (4–8). Large benefits are seen when multiple risk factors are addressed simultaneously (9). There is evidence that ASCVD morbidity and mortality have decreased for people with diabetes since 1990 (10,11) likely due in large part to improvements in blood pressure control (12–14). This Position Statement is intended to update the assessment and treatment of hypertension among people with diabetes, including advances in care since the American Diabetes Association (ADA) last published a Position Statement on this topic in 2003 (3).
DEFINITIONS, SCREENING, AND DIAGNOSIS
Blood pressure should be measured at every routine clinical care visit. Patients found to Continue reading

Calculating Insulin Dose

You'll need to calculate some of your insulin doses.
You'll also need to know some basic things about insulin. For example, 40-50% of the total daily insulin dose is to replace insulin overnight.
Your provider will prescribe an insulin dose regimen for you; however, you still need to calculate some of your insulin doses. Your insulin dose regimen provides formulas that allow you to calculate how much bolus insulin to take at meals and snacks, or to correct high blood sugars.
In this section, you will find:
First, some basic things to know about insulin:
Approximately 40-50% of the total daily insulin dose is to replace insulin overnight, when you are fasting and between meals. This is called background or basal insulin replacement. The basal or background insulin dose usually is constant from day to day.
The other 50-60% of the total daily insulin dose is for carbohydrate coverage (food) and high blood sugar correction. This is called the bolus insulin replacement.
Bolus – Carbohydrate coverage
The bolus dose for food coverage is prescribed as an insulin to carbohydrate ratio.The insulin to carbohydrate ratio represents how many grams of carbohydrate are covered or disposed of by 1 unit of insulin.
Generally, one unit of rapid-acting insulin will dispose of 12-15 grams of carbohydrate. This range can vary from 4-30 grams or more of carbohydrate depending on an individual’s sensitivity to insulin. Insulin sensitivity can vary according to the time of day, from person to person, and is affected by physical activity and stress.
Bolus – High blood sugar correction
(also k Continue reading