More than just ‘likkle sugar’

Diabetes is a very common issue in Jamaica. If you don’t have it, you know about it. Even if you don’t know it as ‘diabetes’ you know it as ‘sugar’ because more often than not, you have a relative who complains most times about the “likkle sugar” that they have. The sad thing is though, if we looked at the statistics of the problems it can cause, it is anything, but likkle.

Diabetes is caused by having too much of a type of sugar called glucose circulating in your blood, if you don’t produce enough of a chemical called insulin, or if your body forgets how to respond to this chemical. There are two main types of diabetes, type 2 and type 1. But let’s focus on type-2 diabetes since it’s the more popular type of diabetes in the Jamaican population.

According to healthdata.org, diabetes was the second-leading cause of death for Jamaica in 2019. Doesn’t sound so small now, does it? The reason diabetes can be so dangerous to the affected population is due to the various complications it can cause. Most of the diabetic population have some sort of secondary illness due to their primary illness, diabetes. You might be surprised at the different issues diabetes can cause.

Heart issues, such as a stroke or heart attack, can often occur in people with diabetes. Having diabetes, especially when uncontrolled, increases your risk of hardened blood vessels, which means they won’t expand and contract as they need to. Furthermore, you’re at an increased risk of fatty deposits along the lining of your blood vessels, which can eventually stop blood from reaching important parts of your heart or brain, causing a heart attack or stroke.

Other organs diabetes can affect include your kidneys. With all the risk of damage to the blood vessels, the kidneys can suffer negatively from uncontrolled diabetes because the kidneys have a lot of little blood vessels. Your kidneys are responsible for producing urine that might contain certain toxins that need to leave the body. With their being damaged, there might be a build-up of fluid and some of these toxins in the body.

DAMAGED BLOOD VESSELS

Did you know that diabetes can also make you lose your sight? Well, it can! Again, it basically stems from, you guessed it, issues with the blood vessels in your eyes. There is fluid in both your eyes that has to be kept in a delicate balance and with these tiny vessels being affected, the fluid balance in your eye is compromised. This, in turn, causes damage to your vision which can eventually get worse to the point of blindness.

Now, let’s look at the, possibly, most popular issue from diabetes, ‘diabetic foot’. Now, most of us have a relative or know someone who has lost a part of their foot or lower limb due to diabetes. In diabetics, foot care is extremely important or else that is the eventual result of poor foot care. By now, I think you know what I’m going to say. Yes, because of the blood vessels!

Again, when diabetes affects the blood vessels, blood doesn’t adequately reach various parts of the body, which includes the ends of your limbs (hands and feet). But, there is also another issue that causes diabetic foot, and that is nerve-damage. With nerve-damage, it begins as varying degrees of pain until you can no longer feel anything in those regions, which means you don’t feel it when you step on that nail, or some other damage to your foot. Then the low blood flow from damaged blood vessels means it doesn’t heal well or fight infection well.

This can cause an infection to begin, or something we call skin tissue death (necrosis) can happen. When these two progress it can become what we call gangrene, which is life- threatening and can spread, which is when we need to remove the part of the body. Now, it tends to happen in the foot rather than the hands mostly because you can see your hands more frequently and can prevent the damage from getting worse.

PROPER SELF-CARE

By this time, if you did know how serious diabetes can be, now you know!

But, does that mean that these issues will definitely happen to you if you have diabetes? What if I told you proper self-care can actually help prevent these from happening to you if you had diabetes?

Yes, self-care is more than just facials and spa time on a Sunday. For people with diabetes, proper self-care involves actions like regularly checking your blood-sugar levels, eating low-starch, low-sugar foods, and consistently taking your medication how you were instructed by your pharmacist. Keeping a journal of all your self-care efforts, as well, can help you keep track of your diabetic management so you know if you’re being controlled or not. Don’t forget to include even a little bit of extra movement per week. If you can add at least 30 minutes of brisk walking to your day it can make a big difference! If you don’t have diabetes, finding out your risk for diabetes (usually if it runs in your family you have a higher chance of getting it), avoiding smoking and alcohol over-drinking, eating balanced meals, being physically active are all self-care measures you can take to help lower your chances of getting diabetes. If you are at a higher risk of developing diabetes, it might also be a good idea to check your blood sugar levels regularly as well, to ensure they are at target levels!

Remember, it can become a bigger problem than it needs to be if you let it. Have a happy World Diabetes Day!