Taking The Control Away From Your Diabetes
Like with everything in life, hindsight is always 20/20, so there’s no use to beat yourself up if you have diabetes. It’s too late for prevention now, but it’s not too late to properly manage your sickness and to lead a normal lifestyle. Use these tips to help you out with the disease.
Quit smoking. Try again if you’ve tried before. Nicotine constricts your blood vessels. Diabetes already have a problem with circulation to the extremeties; that’s what leads to vision problems and the need for amputations. Smoking increases these risks, as well as being bad for your health overall. Ask your doctor for some resources to help you quit.
Get familiar with the glycemic index rating of foods to help gain better control of your diabetes. It is important to learn to recognize high glycemic foods like breads, fruit juices, cereals, pasta and rice. Eating more vegetables, lean proteins and other low glycemic index foods keeps your blood sugar from spiking after meals.
If you have Diabetes, journal your eating habits and blood sugar levels. Do this every day, for every meal. The information contained in your journal can help to explain blood sugar spikes, or dips, throughout the day. It can also provide your physician with real life information that can be used for your on going treatment.
If you are battling illness, you should increase the frequency of your glucose readings. When your body is devoting its resources to fighting off infection, blood sugars can fluctuate in response to the physical and emotional stress that is often linked with sickness. Check glucose and urine ketone levels as often as six times daily during your illness.
To avoid endangering your health, be sure to take your diabetes medication or insulin as your doctor has prescribed. It is important not to skip your diabetes treatment because of the fact that diabetes symptoms are usually silent. Thus, the negative effects of skipping your medication may not always show up immediately. Any factors causing you to avoid taking your medication should be discussed with your doctor at once.
Taking care of your teeth is extremely important when you have diabetes. When you have high levels of glucose in your system, you will also have that in your saliva which will bring about tooth decay. When you have diabetes, it is harder for you to fight any type of infection, so if you get gum disease it will be more serious than if a healthy person develops it.
There are many signs and symptoms of diabetes, so it’s possible to only have some of them, or even none at all, and be diabetic. Some common symptoms encountered are tingling feet, high blood pressure, extreme lethargy, and an unquenchable thirst. Getting your blood-glucose levels checked once a year at your physical is absolutely imperative to a long, healthy life.
You may be very proud or even incredibly stubborn, but you should always realize that you need a little bit of help when you have diabetes. Articles like the one you’ve just read can point you in the right direction when it comes to fighting the disease. Now it’s up to you to put the tips to action.