What Are The Early Symptoms Of Diabetes?

Diabetes is a major epidemic that needs to be addressed quite seriously. India is home to over 101 million individuals with diabetes, making the country the diabetes capital of the world. Common risk factors that lead to diabetes include consuming unhealthy refined and processed food, smoking, leading a passive and inactive lifestyle, a history of diabetes in the family, stress, and obesity. Although there are several medications that can help you control the symptoms of this deadly disease, the key is prevention.

What you need to know:

• Explain the importance of early detection and understanding the symptoms of diabetes
• Common early symptoms of diabetes
• When to seek medical attention?

Explain the importance of early detection and understanding the symptoms of diabetes

Once you are diagnosed with a lifestyle condition like diabetes, it becomes imperative to have many stop gaps in place that prevent the condition from worsening. If not monitored regularly, diabetes may culminate into cardiovascular complications or strokes. Here is where you are required to make several lifestyle changes and strictly adhere to them to maintain stable blood sugar levels. However, if some diabetes symptoms are identified early, one can begin corrective treatment immediately.

Common early symptoms of diabetes

Take note of the following common early symptoms of diabetes, which can help you detect this lifestyle condition at the early stages:

Increased thirst and frequent urination

The food we consume breaks down into glucose and provides us energy to carry on our day-to-day tasks, and the unused glucose is stored. However, in people with diabetes, the extra sugar builds up in the blood, forcing the kidneys to overwork to filter and absorb the excess sugar. When the kidneys cannot keep up with this demand, the extra sugar goes into the urine. The high sugar content in the blood will cause fluids to be pulled from tissues. This will leave you feeling dehydrated and increase your thirst, thus making you urinate more (called polyuria). The presence of excess glucose can also cause the urine to have a sweet smell, which primarily occurs in individuals with type-2 diabetes. 

Unexplained weight loss

Even with the increase in the number of calories consumed, the cells in your body do not absorb the sugars from food, and it is passed out of your body through frequent urination. So, with the extra sugar, you tend to lose out on some calories as well, resulting in sudden weight loss. Dehydration can also be associated with weight loss as an early symptom of diabetes. 

Fatigue and lack of energy

Even though you are consuming more food, the lowered insulin and high blood sugar disrupt the body’s ability to use sugar for energy, leaving you constantly feeling tired. Dehydration as a result of frequent and urgent urination and losing many calories in the process can drain your energy.

Increased hunger

Without sufficient insulin to move the sugar from your blood into the cells of your body, your muscles will feel depleted of energy, thus triggering intense hunger (polyphagia), making it another early symptom of diabetes. If they are normal hunger pangs, then you can satiate your stomach by having healthy snacks like upma or rava to reduce blood sugar.

Blurred Vision

Interestingly, the lens in our eyes is a flexible membrane suspended by muscles that change the shape of the lens to focus the eye. In individuals with uncontrolled type-2 diabetes living in a high-sugar environment, the lens loses its ability to bend. Dehydration and fluid loss can also occur from the tissues around the eyes and lead to blurred vision. If this occurs, it is recommended to consult a healthcare professional immediately. Diabetes, if not taken care of, can, in severe cases, cause new blood vessels to form in the retina, which can damage other blood vessels and lead to vision loss.

Slow-healing wounds and frequent infections

Elevated levels of blood sugar can affect the flow of blood and damage nerves, thereby affecting the body’s natural healing process and making it harder to heal wounds or sores, especially on the feet.

Yeast feeds on glucose and thrives in diabetics because of the heightened level of blood sugar. Both men and women are susceptible to infections, such as urinary tract infections. Therefore, extra care is required while detecting the early symptoms of diabetes.

Tingling or numbness in the extremities

Excess sugar in the blood can affect the nervous system, which may lead to numbness – a tingling feeling or loss of sensation in the hands or feet, giving way to diabetic neuropathy. When it affects the spinal cord and the nerves outside the brain, it is known as peripheral neuropathy. A burning sensation in the arms and legs can also occur. This numbness in the feet can shadow any scrape or injury you might have experienced in the feet. Since you don’t feel any pain, the injury may grow into an infection if not checked timely.

Dry mouth and itchy skin

Because fluids are being drawn from tissues as a result of heightened blood sugar, there is less moisture for other things. This may cause dehydration, leading to itchy skin and a dry mouth making it another early sign of diabetes.

When to seek medical attention?

Apart from the above-mentioned symptoms, if you feel fever, swelling, or pain in any body part, along with profuse sweating, drowsiness, or feeling faint with a sudden loss of responsiveness, it is advisable to seek medical attention as soon as possible. 

As one of the fastest growing epidemics, especially in those over 45, it’s best to be aware of the symptoms that could possibly be lifesaving.

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