Consequences and complications of diabetes
Consequences and complications of diabetes
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The first consequence of diabetes is the deterioration of your small and main arteries. The hyperglycemia and the increased level of fats in the blood increase the atherosclerosis of the main arteries like with coronary illness, but also of the small arteries and capillaries. This damage to the arteries will cause serious complications in the long term. The cardiovascular risk factors, particularly smoking and high blood pressure, can only increase the risk of complications.
Damage to the main arteries
Cardiovascular accidents are the primary cause of death in diabetics.
The damage to the heart arteries (coronaries) is the greater the longer the individual has been a diabetic and the higher the glycemia. It appears as a coronary illness that may be silent and cause a myocardial infarction. Diabetes is also one of the major causes of cerebrovascular accidents.
When the arteries of your legs are affected by atherosclerosis this is called arteriopathy of the lower limbs. The blood has to struggle to reach the end of your feet and your legs and feet are poorly irrigated and very little oxygenated. Your feet are cold, even blue.
Damage to the smaller arteries and capillaries
This is more specific to the diabetic and causes chronic complications in the kidneys, eyes, and nerves. Luckily, the treatments of diabetes and the factors encouraging atherosclerosis are able to slow down their progress considerably.
The arteries of your kidneys are affected: this is diabetic nephropathy.
To start with, the kidneys filter less efficiently the impurities rejected by your body, and they no longer play a cleansing role, and let proteins through. When your kidneys are functioning very poorly, this is called renal failure. You can live for years with a poorly functioning kidney, but there comes a time when this failure has to be compensated by an artificial kidney (hemodialysis): this is ¿terminal¿ renal failure of which diabetes is the main culprit.
The damage to the small arteries of the eye is called retinopathy.
It is manifested by bleeding inside the eye on the retina (the membrane at the back of the eye that receives light and allows sight). This pathology causes sight problems which may worsen over time. If this complication is not treated there is a risk you may become blind. This is why you should have your eyes checked very regularly in order to prevent this development. You can also slow down the development of this pathology by treating your diabetes and your risk factors.
When your nerves are damaged, this is called neuropathy.
This creates considerable sensory disorders: you no longer feel burns and wounds, you have pins and needles and heaviness in the limbs, the impression that your feet have gone dead, you feel pain. More rarely, certain parts of your body can be paralyzed and you no longer have any reflexes. The pathology affects particularly the legs and feet but it can sometimes damage organs such as the stomach or bladder. It is also a cause of impotence in men. Like the other complications, the risk of developing neuropathy increases depending on how long the individual has been diabetic.
Diabetic foot is an evolution of neuropathy and arteriopathy that has gone wrong. The lack of sensation in the feet often results in a diabetic suffering wounds without noticing. Sometimes small wounds such as a shoe rubbing can become infected without your feeling it. If you do not take care, the infection can become deep and spread to the bone. It can lead to wounds ranging from a superficial ulcer to gangrene of the foot and even sometimes end in amputation.
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