Track your toilet trips
Most people urinate between 4 and 8 times per day. If you’re peeing more than 8 times every day, it could be a sign of diabetes. This is particularly the case if you’re frequently having to get up in the night to urinate.
The reason diabetes causes people to pee more is because of excess sugar in the body. The kidneys work overtime to remove this sugar, which means more urinating.
Think about your thirst/hunger levels
Overly frequent urination dehydrates the body and causes people with diabetes to feel constantly thirsty. If you’ve always got a dry mouth and are always drinking fluids, diabetes may be the cause. Some people with diabetes can also get excessively hungry as a result of a lack of energy caused by insulin deficiency and dehydration.
Pay attention to healing wounds
If you’ve got cuts or bruises that don’t seem to be healing, diabetes could also be to blame. High blood sugar levels affect circulation, making it harder for blood cells to reach the wound and repair it.
People with diabetes are also more prone to wounds getting infected because blood cells aren’t able to reach wounds to fight off germs.
Don’t ignore blurry vision
If your vision has started to get progressively blurrier recently and you’ve noticed numerous ‘floaters’ in your vision, this could be another sign of diabetes. Diabetic retinopathy is vision loss caused by high blood sugar levels damaging blood vessels in the eyes. It can lead to blindness if ignored.
Weigh yourself
Unexplained weight loss can also be attributed to diabetes. While obesity and diabetes are strongly linked, there are many cases where diabetes can cause someone to lose weight as a result of burning fat and muscle for energy.
Constant blood sugar level spikes interfere with the body’s ability to produce insulin, so that sugar cannot be turned into energy. This is why the body starts burning fat and muscle instead.
Understand why you’re tired
Lack of energy caused by diabetes will leave you constantly feeling fatigued. There are many causes of chronic exhaustion, which is why it is typically not a good sole indicator. However, tiredness combined with symptoms like thirst, frequent urination and weight loss could be a clear sign of diabetes.
Get tested
The most effective way to tell whether you have diabetes is to get tested. A hba1c test is one of the most effective ways to do this.
See your doctor if you have noticed symptoms listed above and schedule your test.
