8 Diabetic Symptoms to Watch For
As incredible as it may seem, most diabetics don't recognize the telltale signs of the onset of diabetes. To be fair, in the early stages of the disease, the symptoms can be so subtle that it's only in retrospect that we recognize that they were present long before we were diagnosed with the disease. Generally, the diagnosis comes like a bolt out of the blue after we've gone to the doctor for a general check-up because we just don't feel "well." The complaint might be that we feel tired all the time, or it seems like we've had more colds and flu that ever before, or we're having problems with our eyes and wonder if we need new glasses, or we have a cut or a scrape that's not healing like we expected, or concern because our feet or hands go numb.All of those complaints - fatigue, chronic infection, blurred vision, slow-healing wounds, numbness in hands or feet - can be the early warning signs of diabetes. As the disease worsens and continues undiagnosed, the symptoms become more severe. Most common are an unquenchable thirst, frequent urination, and weight loss when we haven't been dieting. For an explanation of how these symptoms are interconnected, read the information on the Diabetes Symptoms page here. The short explanation is that these symptoms are all the result of our bodies having too much sugar and too little insulin to metabolize it into energy. There's no "sugar high" for the diabetic. To the contrary, diabetics experience a "sugar low" - feeling overly fatigued and wishing to sleep more than normal.
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