What are the symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis?

What are the symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis?
Dr. Anne Peters, MD, FACP, CDE

This question is part of an interview on the subject
Diabetes: Complications And Conditions

Symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis generally start with a person feeling just generally sick. They often get a very severe headache. They get a lot of abdominal pain. They start vomiting, nauseated. They pee a lot in the beginning, but as they get dehydrated, they stop peeing a lot. And very quickly, they'll get very dehydrated and can become comatose. But the headache and the abdominal pain and the inability to keep down fluid is very classic, and those people need to immediately go to seek medical attention, because they can quickly get worse. Those are the most common symptoms.The others are more subtle. People get a kind of breathing pattern, a Kussmaul respiration, where they have the deep breathe in and out, in order to try to get the acid out of their body. And I have had some patients call me on the phone, and I can tell they're Kussmaul breathing and I know they have ketoacidosis. But it's not exactly a way that you want to diagnose it. You basically want to take anyone with type 1 diabetes who's vomiting and unable to keep fluids down and get them to an emergency room.

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