Diabetes is a condition that used to mean a lifetime of inconvenience and possible early death; however, in recent years the treatment of diabetes has been greatly simplified and improved, resulting in fewer and fewer complications and deaths. The key to treating diabetes successfully is early detection, not different from early detection of cancer and heart disease and many other health conditions that can be managed successfully. While there are two distinctly different kinds of diabetes, both relate to the presence of excessive blood sugar and the inability of the pancreas to produce enough insulin to process that sugar. Many of the early symptoms of both type I and II are similar.
Type I diabetes occurs most often in young people, even in children. It is often accompanied by frequent urination, extreme thirst, and extreme hunger. Even though the person eats and drinks normally, even excessively, the hunger and thirst persist. Furthermore, these early symptoms are often accompanied by weight loss, tiredness and crossness. The patient with type I diabetes will feel ill; children will lose interest in play and prefer to rest or sleep when others are outside on bicycles or participating in games. This feeling of fatigue and disinterest will possibly result in irritability.
Type II diabetes used to be called “adult onset” diabetes because it occurred most often in adults, but in recent years overweight children have been diagnosed with type II. The earliest symptoms of type II are exactly the same as for type I but include such effects as being slow to heal from minor cuts and scrapes, blurred vision, frequent infections of the skin, gums, and bladder, and neuropathy, tingling and numbness of hands and feet. Moodiness and irritability occur in type II diabetes in both adults and children simply because the patient has so little energy for the activities he once enjoyed.
Early symptoms in either adults or children can be easily overlooked when parents or patients are busy and if the symptoms appear to be mild and very gradual. Unfortunately, by the time the secondary symptoms such as neuropathy become apparent, the disease will have become more advanced. Those who are alert to the early symptoms of diabetes are correct to become alarmed when weight loss occurs without explanation or when children are too tired to want to play. Constant thirst, without any apparent cause, is another telltale sign of diabetes and bedwetting can occur even for children who have not had that problem before. Sudden onset of weakness, faintness, or dizziness is also a symptom of blood sugar out of control and indicates not enough sugar in the bloodstream, an occasional symptom of diabetes.
The best possible strategy for the prevention and treatment of diabetes is the testing of blood for the presence of excessive sugar. When the early symptoms of diabetes occur, a visit to the doctor can easily put fears and worries to rest. Any doctor’s office can perform this test instantly and can offer even more sophisticated testing to indicate exactly what is happening to the patient over a period of time. Diabetic patients, whether type I or II, always must check their blood sugar at home, sometimes more than once each day, in order to monitor their disease and to use their medications properly. Thus diabetes, once diagnosed and a treatment plan developed, is a disease that requires management and monitoring, not mourning.
