Diabetes, one of the country's most prolific and damaging diseases, affects over 30 million Americans. Essentially, it's a disease in which blood sugar levels are too high, either due to a lack of or resistance to an enzyme that gets your sugar under control after eating. Both Type 1 Diabetes and Type 2 Diabetes have certain characteristic symptoms that often act as warning signs that should push an alert individual to seek out medical care and a diagnostic workup. What are some of the common symptoms diabetic patients may come across? It's important to remember that physicians often construct "differentials" when they come across a set of symptoms.This means that if you receive a piece of information or come across a certain physical finding on exam, they think through the possibilities that might be causing it. For instance, fatigue can be attributed not only to diabetes, but also to anemia, autoimmune conditions, a lack of sleep, HIV infection, and many other conditions. Constructing a differential is important, therefore a patient should head to the doctor to confirm the underlying cause of their condition.
Self-diagnosis can be a dangerous and misleading process. If you end up experiencing any of these symptoms and they persist, it’s worth paying a visit to the doctor, who can order some relatively simple workup tests to gauge whether you have diabetes, or may be headed for it. One of the most important markers is known as Hemoglobin A1C (HA1C). Basically, your doctor looks at your blood and determines long-term glucose control (over the course of months). It’s an especially effective test, because folks who simply consume excess sugar once in awhile (say during major events or family gatherings), are unlikely to exhibit a drastically elevated HA1C. However, someone who consistently has elevated blood sugar levels will display an elevated HA1C upon testing. In addition, they can run easy exams like the glucose tolerance test, which assesses how your body will react to sugar intake. An inability to metabolize the sugar properly could also lead to a diagnosis.
