Frequently Asked Questions
Diabetes is a metabolic disease in which the blood sugar or blood glucose level increases above the normal levels. The glucose or sugar comes from the food that we intake. Our body has a hormone called insulin that is produced by the pancreas. It helps the glucose to enter our cells and produces energy.
Patients get diabetes when either the cells do not respond to insulin or when the pancreas stop producing the required amount of insulin. Due to this, the glucose stays in your blood and over time the level of glucose in your blood increases. It can cause serious problems like damage to nerves, eyes and kidney, stroke, heart diseases, and sometimes even gangrene of limbs.
The ‘target group’ is as follows:
Type 1 diabetes: starts at early age, even in a child less than 6 months old. It is Juvenile Diabetes. Pancreas does not function at all. Hence they need insulin injection daily right from their young days.
Type 2 diabetes: is what affects most of the adults. This can start at any time though it starts normally after 30-40 years of age. Unfortunately the onset age is decreasing gradually because of the poor life style and greater stress in the modern life.
Diabetic Neuropathy: Our nervous system is affected if diabetes is left uncontrolled for years together. Numbness, pain, tingling sensation, weakness in limbs, chappals going off our feet unknowingly while walking, lack of sexual desire are some of the symptoms.
Diabetic Retinopathy: our eyes can be affected; lens can become opaque (cataract), eye fluid pressure can increase thus damaging the optical nerve (glaucoma) or eye screen can bleed (retinopathy) if diabetes is left uncontrolled for long.
Diabetic Nephropathy: Our kidneys can stop purifying our blood resulting in the need for dialysis twice a week at a high cost and great discomfort.
Heart problems can set in earlier than normal and they can be ‘silent’ most of the time.
Feet can be affected badly; if left unattended, blood circulation gets restricted, medicines become useless and few toes or foot or even part of the leg needs to be amputed (removed by surgery) ultimately.
If you have diabetes you are not alone. 6 per cent of the world population are known diabetics and may be twice that number does not know that they are also diabetics.
It is simple. If the sugar level is controlled throughout your life you live a better life than the normal person otherwise you end up facing severe complications. Uncontrolled diabetes affects 5 different organs as above severely. Once complications set in there is no way to fully reverse these damages but there are many ways to stop further damages.
Complications will affect our normal life and our finances ultimately. Hence it is very important to keep the sugar levels under control all the time.
The BEST method suggested by all doctors unanimously is to PREVENT diabetes! Is this not common to all disorders? No. It is more applicable to diabetes because there ARE proven methods to ‘prevent’ diabetic complications though we cannot prevent diabetes.
Diabetes is NOT a disease; it does not spread; it is just a disorder of the body; diabetes by itself does not harm us; but its complications harm us. Hence we need not prevent diabetes but we need to prevent its complications.
How do we do it? Luckily the diabetic complications start only about 15-20 years after the diabetes sets in. So if we can push the start date by 15 years from 30 years to say 45 years, the complications would start only from say 65th year! Thus early diagnosis is the key.
Looks easy, isn’t it? But in practice many people who have diabetes fail to detect them early since the symptoms are ‘silent’ for almost 10-15 years! This is a ‘silent killer’ really if left untreated.
Hence if you are a ‘target group’ member as stated above, keep checking your Fasting and PP blood sugar every year from your 30th year at least annually. The moment you realize that they are abnormal, meet the doctor and follow his advice strictly.
Many studies have proven that the best way to control diabetes is to act in the first TEN years (in its early stage when it does not bother you) and not in the last ten years (when the game is already lost). PRIMARY PREVENTION is the key here.
1. Food Control.
2. Regular check up and Medication.
3. Exercise.
Weekly check:
Check Fasting and Post Prandial or PP blood sugar (90-100 minutes after food) every week using a Blood Glucose Meter at home which is available for Rs.1000-2000 and will last for 2-4 years; each (one-time use) Test strip costs Rs.25-35.
Fasting values must be 80-120 mg/dL and PP must be less than 180 mg/dl. One drop of blood from the finger tips and 2 minutes of time is what is needed.
Urine test strips (Diastrips cost about Rs.15-25 each) are also available which change in colour when dipped in urine and is a reliable method though only approximate values are known.
Once in 3 months:
Go to the nearest reliable lab preferably on an empty stomach and give one small vial of blood (Cost: say Rs.200-300) to check the following:
Fasting sugar. (If you need PP sugar you need to go again 90 minutes after food)
HbA1c (this is the average blood sugar in our body in the last 3 months). It should 7% or less. Need not be on empty stomach; many pharmacies like the Apollo check it for a small fee in a meter and give you instant results now.
BP must be 130/80 mmHg.
Cholesterol must be 200 mg/dl or less, Triglyceride 150 or less, LDL (bad) Cholesterol 100 or less and HDL (good) Cholesterol 40 or more. (All these are classified as Lipid Profile Test)
Meet Doctor if any parameter is above limits.
Annual check up:
Diabetics need to keep not only blood sugar but also all other parameters like BP and Cholesterol under check since the diabetics are more prone to ‘silent’ heart attacks (angina).
Full tests are a must for all the five organs which could be affected by the high blood sugar.
This will cost you Rs.3000-5000 for about 25 tests. It is preferable to test these in a Diabetic hospital lab.