Diabetes

What is it?
Types of Diabetes
Signs & Symptoms
Tests
Treatment

Signs and Symptoms

The signs and symptoms of diabetes are related to high glucose levels (hyperglycaemia), temporarily low glucose levels (hypoglycaemia), and to complications associated with diabetes. The complications can be related to lipid (fat) production, to macrovascular (large blood vessel) or microvascular (small blood vessel) damage, to organ damage - for example kidney (diabetic nephropathy), nerve (diabetic neuropathy), and eye (diabetic retinopathy) damage, and/or to the slower healing associated with diabetes. Type 1 diabetics are often diagnosed with acute severe symptoms that require hospitalisation. With early type 2 diabetes, and gestational diabetes there may be no symptoms.

Symptoms of type 1 and type 2 diabetes with hyperglycaemia may include any of:

Increased thirst
Passing increasing amounts of urine
Increased appetite (with type 1 weight loss is also seen)
Tiredness
Feeling sick
Vomiting
Stomach pain (especially in children)
Blurred vision
Slow-healing infections
Numbness, tingling, and pain in the feet
Erectile dysfunction in men
Absence of menstruation in women
Rapid breathing (acute)
Decreased consciousness, coma (acute)

Symptoms of impending hypoglycaemia:
Temporary hypoglycaemia in the diabetic may be caused by the accidental injection of too much insulin, not eating enough or waiting too long to eat, exercising strenuously, or by the swings in glucose levels seen in patients with diabetes which is difficult to control (often referred to as 'brittle diabetes').

Hypoglycaemia needs to be treated because if it is severe, it can rapidly progress to unconsciousness. True hypoglycaemia occurs when the blood sugar is below 2.5 mmol/L, though symptoms may develop earlier, especially if the blood sugar falls rapidly, and include:

Sensation of hunger
Headache
Anxiety
Sweating
Confusion
Trembling
Weakness
Double vision
Convulsions (severe)
Coma (severe)