Complications of diabetes may never happen if you work closely with your doctor and other professionals keeping your blood glucose near normal you will then have a good chance avoiding long-term complications of diabetes.

The ball is in your court if you have diabetes and had high blood glucose levels over a period of many years un-checked and have ignored obvious symptoms than you have a greater chance of encountering problems with your diabetes.

Complications of diabetes could include:

• Kidney disease
• Problems with your eyes
• Nerve damage
• Skin problems
• Not keeping your Cholesterol under control
• Problematic feet

If you have recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes you may have already had the disease for around five years or more and one would assume that your doctor may want to investigate further any possibility of symptoms of long term diabetic complications that you may have.

But there is good news to hand that even if you have long-term complications of diabetes by simply controlling your blood glucose levels you can slow the progression of the complications.

How not to have complications of diabetes:

• Blood glucose control will help reverse the damage that has been done.  “A Diabetic Control and Complications Trial in the United States full study details are available on National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease website” which studied glucose control in type 1 diabetes, and the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study Groups in type 2 diabetes have shown this clearly.  If you keep your blood glucose range close to normal you will not develop diabetic nephropathy.
• Keep an eye on your blood pressure as the blood pressure protects the kidneys from deteriorating.  Control of your blood pressure is through diet; exercise and depending on your doctor’s advice certain drugs will help keep it in control.Try to avoid damaging your kidneys; people with diabetes are susceptible to urinary tract infections.  Identify the infections early and seek treatment as left untreated will affect your kidneys.
• Diabetic retinopathy used to mean that as a diabetic that you would end up blind from this disease that is far from fact nowadays.  Ensure that you get your eyes examined yearly by an ophthalmologist who is the expert in his field.   Early detection is a must to diagnose retinopathy, all the examination requires is for drops placed in your eyes and the pressure instrument reveals the appearance of your lens and the condition of the retina of your eye.There are many treatments that can be done but it needs to be diagnosed first!  Depending on the abnormality (if one is found that is) will dictate the treatment that is required.
• Nerve damage is common with people who have poorly controlled diabetes and the sad thing is that they do not realize that they have this disease as they do not have any symptoms – yet.Nerve disease may first surface with foot infections or ulcers, which will not heal or get any better.  Left untreated could end with amputations.  But these types of diabetic neuropathy complications are preventable by controlling high glucose levels and following doctors orders to bring the level close to normal there are some cases that the neuropathy disappears all together.

You don’t need to go down the road of complications of diabetes if you look after your health and seek treatment early.