Prevention | First symptoms | 7 tips for parents
Methods of the prevention or early diagnosis of diabetes
Every person after 45 years of age needs to take a fasting blood sugar test once a year. If a person is at risk due to heredity or being overweight, he needs to take this test more often, and not only on an empty stomach, but also after eating, having done either a food load test or a glucose tolerance test. Also, for the comprehensive diagnosis of diabetes mellitus, a blood test for glycosylated hemoglobin is used.
A lot depends on each of us in diabetes prevention. Limit calories do not overeat, exercise more — and you will significantly reduce the risk of developing diabetes. If you still have this disease, this is not a tragedy! Diabetes is a manageable disease today. With adequate and timely treatment, the quality and life expectancy of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus is often even higher than that of their peers without diabetes. The main thing is to notice the disease early.
The first symptoms of diabetes
- Persistent or intermittent dry mouth
- Thirst — often patients drink up to several liters of fluid per day
- Frequent urination
- Weight loss or drastic weight gain
- Severe itching, dry skin, pustules on the skin and soft tissues
- Muscle weakness
- Excessive sweating
- Poor healing of any wounds
The listed symptoms are at the initial stage. Their appearance should be an immediate reason for a blood sugar test. If the sugar is high, you should immediately consult an endocrinologist. General practitioners and therapists are often poorly aware of diabetes, and this can delay the correct diagnosis.
7 tips for parents
Diabetes mellitus is getting younger — it is increasingly being diagnosed in adolescents and children. A pediatric endocrinologist at the EMC Clinic, gives some advice on how parents should behave in such a situation.
- Keep calm. You can live a long and comfortable life with diabetes if you follow all the recommendations of an endocrinologist.
- Be sure to attend diabetes school, ideally with the whole family, including grandparents.
- As early as possible, teach your child to independently control blood glucose and calculate the required amount of insulin for injection. Do not scold for low or high blood sugar, try to jointly find out the cause of such numbers and eliminate it.
- If the disease is detected at a transitional age, a teenager can conclude that his life will consist of only prohibitions and he will be doomed to seclusion. Explain to your child that there are millions of people living with diabetes and that the disease does not cause any limitations in communication with peers. If a teenager has withdrawn into himself, a visit to a psychotherapist is mandatory!
- It is necessary to limit the consumption of foods prohibited for the child by the rest of the family so that the child is not tempted to break their diet.
- At school, be sure to inform the class teacher and physical education teacher about your child’s illness and make sure they know how to help your child when they feel unwell.
- The child should always have a sugar cube or candy in his pocket in case of hypoglycemia.