To prevent the disease, it is important to know the main symptoms of diabetes. Diabetes mellitus is a chronic endocrine disease resulting from an absolute or partial lack of insulin, or tissue insensitivity to this hormone.
Often this disease is also known as the "silent killer". Statistics show that about 50% of patients are not aware of their problem and go on to lead a normal life, while sugar slowly destroys their body.
According to the World Health Organization, this disease ranks in the top 3 among diseases, after cardiovascular disease and cancer. According to their forecast, the number of patients will double every 15 years.
All of these demonstrate the necessity of a correct diagnosis, and most importantly, a timely diagnosis and adequate treatment of this disease. Everyone should know the first symptoms of diabetes in the modern world and be ready to start treatment.
Early signs of illness
Let's consider in detail, what could be the symptoms of diabetes? Like any other pathological process, diabetes has an early stage with abundant symptoms, a peak and a terminal phase.
In order not to bring the case to an unfavorable outcome, it is necessary to promptly suspect the disease and consult a doctor. The first symptoms of diabetes are like those of a common cold infection.
Including:
- Constantly tired and want to sleep.
- Frequent urination, urinary incontinence, nocturia.
- Significant loss of body weight for no apparent reason.
- Small wound healing time, long cut.
- Decreased sexual activity in men, problems with premature ejaculation.
- Hunger, which can hardly be satisfied with regular portions of food, occurs even without any physical exertion.
- Visual impairment, blurred vision and double vision.
- Mild itching in the tips of the fingers or toes. Violation of small movements and tactile sensitivity.
- Thirst in diabetes and want to drink lots of water. Daily moisture consumption can exceed 3-4 liters.
- Urinary and genital tract infections in women.
As you can see, these symptoms are very non-specific and are often attributed to hard work, stress, or a cold. But if they start to develop in a person, the best solution is to consult a doctor and get a blood test for sugar and glycated hemoglobin>.
Symptoms of the disease in adolescents
The first symptoms of diabetes in children in most cases coincide with those in adults. However, there are nuances that you need to know for a timely diagnosis.
The first "bells" for children as young as 7 years old can be:
- Polydipsia or intense thirst. The child, even with normal physical activity, constantly wants to drink.
- Urinary incontinence in the past has never occurred.
- Significantly reduce body weight with a complete diet.
- Frequent nausea and vomiting.
- Problems at school, poor performance, mood swings, aggression.
- Increased bacterial diseases of the skin (pimples, boils, barley and others), constant itching.
- During puberty, girls can develop thrush or other bacterial lesions.
The problem is that parents ignore such signs in their child, which often leads to a hyperglycemic coma and the development of pronounced complications that are difficult to treat.
It is important to be able to suspect diabetes in young children as well. They can't say what's bothering them, but a parent needs to understand their child.
The first symptoms of neonatal hyperglycemia may be the following:
- With anorexia, children have poor or no weight gain.
- The baby's constant restlessness, which goes away only after he or she takes milk.
- Occurrence of diaper rash in the groin area, which occurs more often than usual and does not respond to standard treatment.
- A special condition of diapers after drying children's urine - they become as if starved.
- Perhaps the formation of sticky spots on the surface of the baby's urine.
- With the acute development of the disease, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration of the body may appear sharply.
The ability to suspect illness is very important. Unfortunately, the average person sometimes doesn't fully understand the severity of the first signs of diabetes. Due to such an improper attitude towards himself and his health, more than half of the cases with a correct diagnosis fall into the final state - a hyperglycemic coma.
Its symptoms are:
- loss of consciousness of the patient;
- dry skin;
- decreased blood pressure and increased heart rate;
- characteristic odor of acetone from the mouth.
When such an image is present, the patient should be hospitalized immediately with drug therapy with insulin.
To prevent the occurrence of conditions and diseases in general, everyone should know the first signs and symptoms of diabetes.