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June 15, 2010
People living with diabetes learn to manage their disease with proper diet, regular exercise and medication. Success is measured by how well you can control your blood sugar.
However, many factors can affect blood sugar besides diet and activity. Illness, stress, social drinking and menstrual cycles can all influence blood sugar levels and upset your normal routine.
If you have diabetes, you may know that and make adjustments accordingly.
But some symptoms of trouble are always reasons to seek medical advice, whether it’s a call to your doctor or a trip to the emergency room.
Here are the diabetes symptoms you should never ignore.
These are three common warning signs of uncontrolled blood sugar.
With any of these symptoms, you should test your blood sugar and call your doctor. Depending on how high your blood sugar is, medication or hydration may be the prescribed treatment.
If left unchecked, high blood sugar can lead to serious, life-threatening conditions. Type 1diabetes patients can develop diabetic ketoacidosis, which happens when the body starts breaking down fats instead of sugars and a dangerous buildup of ketones (byproducts of fat metabolism) occurs.
In type 2 diabetes patients, hyperosmolar coma can occur. It’s essentially uncontrolled diabetes, which leads to dehydration and altered consciousness and which could be fatal if untreated.
If you develop sudden changes in vision, experience eye pain, or see spots or lights floating in your field of vision, call your doctor. You may need to see an ophthalmologist. People with diabetes are at increased risk of an eye condition called retinopathy, which can lead to vision loss.
Even without eye symptoms, diabetes patients should see an ophthalmologist yearly for a routine eye exam.
Patients with diabetes have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and twice the normal rate of related emergency events, such as heart attack and stroke.
So get any potential heart disease symptoms checked out. And keep in mind that heart symptoms aren't always predictable.
It's also possible to have heart disease that doesn't have obvious symptoms, so make sure you see your doctor regularly and have your cardiovascular risk factors evaluated.
Living with diabetes has its challenges, no matter how carefully you follow your diet, exercise and medication routine. By watching for telltale signs of heart disease, uncontrolled blood sugar, infection and eye problems, while keeping in touch with your health care professional, you can avoid serious consequences.
In the meantime, take a look at our new page on diabetes, to learn more how you can live a more robust and healthy life despite diabetes.
Be Well,
-Christopher Lau, MD
NECC Executive Director/CEO
Or you can send a check to:
Development Dept.
Northeast Community Clinics
2550 W. Main St.
Alhambra, CA 91801
There are 23.6 million people in the United States, or 8% of the population, who have diabetes. The total prevalence of diabetes increased 13.5% from 2005 to 2007. Only 24% of diabetes is undiagnosed, down from 30% in 2005 and from 50% ten years ago.
The total estimated cost of diabetes in 2007 is $174 billion, including $116 billion in excess medical expenditures and $58 billion in reduced national productivity.
Medical costs attributed to diabetes include $27 billion for care to directly treat diabetes, $58 billion to treat the portion of diabetes-related chronic complications that are attributed to diabetes, and $31 billon in excess general medical costs.
The largest components of medical expenditures attributed to diabetes are hospital inpatient care (50% of total cost), diabetes medication and supplies (12%), retail prescriptions to treat complications of diabetes (11%), and physician office visits (9%).
People with diagnosed diabetes incur average expenditures of $11,744 per year, of which $6,649 is attributed to diabetes.
People with diagnosed diabetes, on average, have medical expenditures that are 2.3 times higher than what expenditures would be in the absence of diabetes.
For the cost categories analyzed, $1 in $5 health care dollars in the U.S. is spent caring for someone with diagnosed diabetes, while $1 in $10 health care dollars is attributed to diabetes.
Indirect costs include increased absenteeism ($2.6 billion) and reduced productivity at work ($20.0 billion) for the employed population, reduced productivity for those not in the labor force ($0.8 billion), unemployment from disease-related disability ($7.9 billion), and lost productive capacity due to early mortality ($26.9 billion).
The actual national burden of diabetes is likely to exceed the $174
billion estimate because it omits the social cost of intangibles such as pain and suffering, care provided by nonpaid caregivers, excess medical costs associated with undiagnosed diabetes, and diabetes-attributed costs for health care expenditures categories omitted from this study. Omitted from this analysis are expenditure categories such as health care system administrative costs, over-the-counter medications, clinician training programs, and research and infrastructure development.
The burden of diabetes is imposed on all sectors of society— higher insurance premiums paid by employees and employers, reduced earnings through productivity loss, and reduced overall quality of life for people with diabetes and their families and friends.
33.3% of men and 35.3% of women are obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
72 million Americans overweight or obese with an associated $140 billion a year in extra medical costs requires some action beyond personal choice.
Janae A. Oliver, Sr. Community Benefit Health Specialist, Public Affairs at KP-South Bay welcomed community clinics throughout the Southern California area to a workshop on Proactive Office Encounters on the Kaiser-South Bay campus recently.
i2i System's Rhonda Metze welcomes keynote speaker, Will Gaud, to the 4th annual i2i Tracks User's Conference recently in Foster City, CA. For the past 10 years Will has been consulting for the Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) and HRSA’s Office of Health Information Technology concentrating his efforts on ambulatory electronic health record systems (formerly electronic medical record or EMR). He coauthored the original BPHC’s EHR functional specification and actively provides technical assistance on behalf of HRSA OIT and BPHC to health centers with their system definition, procurement and implementation planning processes. Rhonda has contributed her vast knowledge and experience with the system to NECC's creation of grant-winning proposals to foundation to fund the organization's purchase and implementation of the unique patient tracking system. "i2i has enabled us to track our patients quickly and more efficiently so that our clinics can provide the highest quality of patient care and service," reports Bernard Carrillo, Clinic Services Administrator, who along with other NECC management, attended the conference.
NECC staffers took a break from their outreach/education booth at the 3rd Annual Gage Middle School Book & Health Fair recently. Four NECC employees donated 10 inches of their hair to Locks for Love, which creates wigs for children undergoing chemotherapy. |
