Understanding the Connection between Diabetes and Fatigue
Diabetes and fatigue go together like peas and carrots. In fact, if you haven’t been diagnosed as having diabetes but find yourself nodding off at your computer keyboard and feeling tired even after a good night’s sleep, one of the things you might consider is the possibility of your fatigue being diabetes related.
Although diabetes and fatigue are very closely related, fatigue is also a symptom of several other conditions. You should not consider fatigue by itself a conclusive indicator of diabetes since fatigue could also indicate a long list of other conditions from pregnancy and sleep apnea to certain forms of cancer. However, if fatigue occurs in conjunction with other diabetes symptoms this increases the possibility that you might have diabetes.
Diabetes Symptoms
In addition to the connection between diabetes and fatigue, you will also often find the following symptoms present. If you not only feel abnormally tired but also always feel an unquenchable desire for water, this is good sign of the presence of diabetes. If you often have to pee, are always starved yet keep seeing the pounds flow off, then you should definitely ask you doctor about diabetes. If you top all of these symptoms off with blurry sight and itchy, uncomfortable skin conditions, then you are the textbook case of undiagnosed diabetes. Call your doctor and be ready to see the phlebotomist on your visit, because you will definitely need to run some tests to measure you blood sugar levels.
What is diabetes?
In case you have heard the name but don’t really know what diabetes is, here is a quick primer. Diabetes is blood disease that occurs when either a person’s body does not produce enough insulin naturally or the person has a resistance to insulin. Without adequate levels of insulin, the person’s body cannot convert sugars in the blood into energy thus leaving the blood packed with these un-metabolized sugars.
This explains the connection between diabetes and fatigue. Since the body can’t get an adequate amount of energy from the sugars in the blood, the individual is like a car low on gas, unable to get going at normal levels.
Medicine has discovered how to increase insulin levels even to those that are resistant, so although diabetes can have negative outcomes if untreated, most people live perfectly normally with diabetes just by monitoring their blood levels.
What causes diabetes?
Studies have found there are several causes for diabetes. Genetics is a big cause. If your family members have suffered from this condition, your chances of getting it go up steeply.
Diet and activity levels, however, add greatly to any genetic predisposition. Studies have linked obesity, lack of exercise and poor diet to higher incidences of diabetes.
Treatments
If you discover there is, in fact, a connection between diabetes and fatigue symptoms you have been feeling this may actually be a good thing. It is important that you get yourself checked out as soon as possible since identifying diabetes early gives you the best chances of treating your diabetes through natural means.
If caught early, a change in diet and a new exercise plan will keep your diabetes from progressing.
If your diabetes is of a more complicated variety or it has already progressed, your doctor will most likely prescribe an insulin injector and a blood monitor.
Regardless of whether it turns out to be diabetes or not, you should use this event to make healthy lifestyle changes that will have positive effects regardless of the reason why you feel fatigue. It is always a good time to start sleeping better and eating less fatty foods. Avoiding caffeine and exercising more will inevitably lead to better health. In addition, if you live a stressful lifestyle, finding better relaxation techniques will qualitatively improve your life. It is never too late to start on the road to a healthy lifestyle.