What are the consequences of mismanaged diabetes?

Unmanaged or mismanaged diabetes can have devastating consequences. They include:

-Hypertension: also known as high blood pressure.

The pressure on the walls of the blood vessels increases a person’s chance of having a stroke and heart attack, among other things.

-Cardiovascular disease: Diabetes can negatively impact one’s entire cardiovascular system; that is, the working of your heart and blood vessels.“Why people with diabetes develop cardiovascular disease earlier than people who do not have the disease is not clearly understood,” states The Joslin Guide to Diabetes, “but studies suggest that the inflammatory process begins very early in the patient who is insulin resistant.”

-Nerve damage: High blood sugar can damage nerves that relate to your limbs, leaving you with numbness in your hands, legs, or arms. Harm can also come to nerves that control other parts of the body, including the stomach, bladder, and penis. “Nearly one half of all men with diabetes develop erectile dysfunction (ED, or impotence),” The Joslin Guide to Diabetes points out. “Much less is known about how diabetes may cause specific nerve problems that affect sexual function in women,” says this guide, “although it has been suggested that vaginal dryness may occur. Also, high levels of blood glucose may make women more susceptible to vaginal yeast infections, which in turn can make intercourse more painful.”

-Amputations: Blood vessels can constrict and harden so that not enough blood flows down to lower limbs, and off comes a toe, foot, or leg.

-Blindness: Diabetes can wreak havoc on the retina’s small blood vessels.

-Kidney disease: High blood sugar can damage your kidneys’ filtering units. The damage can result in complete kidney failure.

Along with these major health risks, there are a host of “little” things that can cramp a diabetic’s life, such as halitosis.