High blood sugar levels can also cause rapid and unexpected weight loss because your body is not absorbing glucose properly. When the glucose (sugars) are excreted by excessive urinating, it is not stored in the cells for energy. This decreases the amount of calories and can lead to sudden unhealthy loss of weight. This constant excretion of sugar through urinating can also cause increased hunger. So if you are always hungry and eating, why do you lose weight? That’s because you can’t compensate for the calories that you lose.
2. Excessive Thirst and Frequent Urination
A warning sign of Type 2 diabetes is an overwhelming urge to urinate. So if you frequently need to empty your bladder, particularly during the night, it could be a red flag. When someone has diabetes, their body is less efficient at breaking food down into sugar and as a result they have extra sugar in their blood. This makes their kidneys work harder to rid the blood of that sugar.
The kidneys can’t keep up with filtering the sugar from the body and the extra sugar (glucose) is flushed out in the urine. The harder the kidneys have to work, the more a person will need to urinate. Excessive thirst goes hand in hand with this because as you urinate more, you lose more fluids and this leads to dehydration. The body will try to replace that lost fluid and you will want to drink more.
3. Increased Hunger
It’s estimated than an incredible one in four people in the world has diabetes and don’t know they do. Another subtle sign of the condition is feeling shaky or unsteady and craving carbs or sugar. This is because your high blood sugar makes it difficult for your body to regulate glucose. Your cells need glucose to provide fuel and energy for your body. Your body needs to use insulin, the pancreatic hormone, to get glucose into your cells to make them function.
If you don’t have enough insulin or your cells don’t respond to it, your body doesn’t get enough glucose and you crave it. Sharp peaks and lows in blood sugar levels lead to feeling excessively hungry all the time. Your cells lack essential energy and you still feel hungry even after eating a meal. If you have excessive hunger pangs over a prolonged period, it could be wise to make an appointment for a check up.
4. Tired All The Time
People can get sluggish and tired now and again. It’s only natural in today’s fast-paced world as we all try to pack so much in. But a feeling of excessive fatigue and weakness could be a subtle sign that you have Type 2 diabetes. Tiredness on its own may not seem significant but coupled with several of the other symptoms, it is definitely worth getting a medical check up. When your cells are robbed of glucose and don’t have the necessary fuel to energise the body as they’re supposed to do, exhaustion and weakness result.
This is because your body is forever expending itself to compensate for its glucose deficiency. Fatigue is caused by the extra work the kidneys have to do, also not being able to sleep because of a constant urge to urinate. It can also be due to your blood vessels being inflamed.
5. Vision Problems
Another early sign of diabetes is blurred vision because the eyes are sensitive to high blood sugar levels. When glucose levels spike, dehydration results as fluid is pulled from the tissues. Glucose builds up in the eye causing the lenses to swell and temporarily change shape resulting in distorted vision. People with undiagnosed diabetes may also see floaters or occasional flashes of light. If not controlled, diabetes can cause serious vision problems.
6. More Prone to Infections
Diabetes has been branded “the silent killer” because symptoms that can lead to early diagnosis can be easily overlooked. Unchecked, diabetes can lead to serious complications. One of the common cues to early detection is developing frequent infections. This is because diabetes creates a slowed immune system, which affects the body’s ability to fight off infections. This means that someone with diabetes may be ill more often than a person with normal blood sugar levels.
Patients are at risk of a variety of infections. The most common are yeast (candida) and fungal infections. Sugary environments are a breeding ground for fungi and bacteria, so women with diabetes are likely to be more prone to suffer from infections such as urinary tract and vaginal infections. If you keep getting these infections, ask for a diabetes test.
7. Slow Healing Cuts and Bruises
Type 2 diabetes has lots of early signs, but they can seem to be minor medical annoyances rather than a huge alert that something serious is going on. If in doubt, it is best to ask your doctor to carry out a few tests. One of the symptoms that may go unheeded is the fact that cuts and bruises are taking longer to heal.
Kids are always falling down and their legs are covered in bright coloured plasters. Their wounds seem to heal up in no time. But if your sores are taking more than a few weeks to go away, it could be due to high glucose levels weakening your immune system. An excessive amount of glucose harms the veins and arteries making it hard for fresh blood, which is needed for skin healing, to move around the body. And if they go unhealed for a long time, serious infections can develop.
8. Tingling and Numbness
When a person has too much sugar in their blood, it causes complications, which could be an early warning sign that they are suffering from diabetes. One of these is a prickly tingling and numbness in the extremities, such as the feet and hands, a condition known as Diabetic Neuropathy. This happens because the elevated blood glucose levels interfere with signals transmitted by nerves. The walls of small blood vessels are weakened and the blood supply is cut off in the extremities. Another hallmark of possible nerve damage is a burning pain in the hands, fingers, arms, feet, toes and legs.
If someone suffers tingling, numbness and burning for extended periods, they should see a doctor because the nerve damage is not reversible and can become permanent causing muscle wasting and in some cases amputation if sugar levels are not brought down quickly. However, if the symptoms are recent, it may be reversible.
9. Skin Problems
We’ve already said that a good way to be diagnosed early is to look out for multiple symptoms that could prevent serious health complications developing. Type 2 diabetes has a wide reach and can affect every part of the body. Our bodies are made up of around 50% to 70% of water and the urge to empty our bladders frequently can lead to the skin drying out. Diabetes affects blood circulation and this can also lead to dehydration.
The result can leave skin feeling itchy. Other skin problems can include boils and blisters, infections around the nails and acanthosis nigricans, a darkening of the skin around the neck, groin or armpit area. That’s why unusual skin changes can be among the first indications that something is wrong. The good news is that the problems can clear up once caught and managed.
10. Irritability
Who doesn’t get moody or grumpy from time to time? However, prolonged irritability is another common sign of underlying health issues, which again can go unnoticed. If you have the urge to urinate a lot, are plagued by infections, are always hungry, are constantly tired, then you are bound to be short tempered or depressed. It’s all down to your blood sugar being out of balance and losing energy that should be stored in your cells.
It you are suffering from excessive irritability and there’s no issues in your life that you can attribute it to, like a nasty boss or feeling underpaid and overworked, then it could be the onset of Type 2 Diabetes. Go get yourself a health check. Once your blood sugar is normalised, your moodiness should improve.
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Source: http://www.hithenews.com/10-early-warning-signs-of-diabetes-243.html
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