How To Lower High Blood Sugar
With careful monitoring and control of your blood sugar levels, you can live a healthy life. There are a number of ways you can lower and prevent high blood sugar.
Learn to count carbohydrates: When you count carbs or keep track of what you are eating, you can control your blood sugar more efficiently. Set a maximum amount you can have each day for your meal,s and keep track to make sure you do not go past the limit. This helps to stabilize blood sugar and prevent dangerous spikes. Portion control is important too, so make sure your meals are not too large, as these can cause temporary spikes.
Try meal planning: To help keep track of your carbohydrate intake, start planning your meals. Based on the amount of carbohydrates you can have, plan meals accordingly, so you do not risk going above the set limit. When your meals are planned, you also avoid eating out or getting convenience food, which contains more sugar and fat, and will negatively affect your blood sugar.
Start a weight loss program: Obesity contributes to diabetes and impairs your bodys ability to process energy efficiently. Losing weight helps your body to use insulin more efficiently, and it reduces fat storage, which can trigger inflammation in the body.
Alcohol Abuse Or Withdrawal
After a night of drinking, you would usually experience sweating during sleep. People consider this to be a good thing youre sweating the alcohol away so that in the morning you could be good as new. However, regular alcohol consumption can cause night sweats that are a more serious symptom.
Night sweats after alcohol consumption mean youre having alcohol withdrawal symptoms. Especially if youre a heavy drinker, these symptoms and night sweats can last for weeks and can be even more severe than just excessive nocturnal sweating. In such cases, it is important to drink enough water and try to eat food that is high in fiber and fat.
It is also important to mention that nocturnal sweating after alcohol consumption can be a sign of alcohol intolerance. This condition is caused by a genetic mutation that can prevent your body from dealing with the toxins from the alcohol.
Alcohol intolerance is also accompanied by nausea, vomiting, chills, facial redness, asthma-like symptoms, and runny/stuffy nose. In order to deal with alcohol intolerance, you need to make sure your room temperature is comfortable, even a bit cooler and that you get a shower to cool down before bed.
What To Know About Diabetes And Hot Flashes
Hot flashes are a symptom that most people associate with menopause. However, diabetes and hot flashes also have a complex relationship. In fact, research has shown that women who experience hot flashes are more likely to develop diabetes later in life. Furthermore, some diabetics experience hot flashes as a part of their condition. In this article, we explore the link between diabetes and hot flashes. Read on to learn more.
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The Link Between Diabetes And Excessive Sweating
Diabetes is an endocrine disorder, which means that it impacts many different systems in our body. Because of this, it’s harder to maintain a steady internal body temperature, a process called thermoregulation. Diabetes throws off the body’s natural ability to balance body temperature.
High or low blood sugar levels can lead to hyperhidrosis or anhidrosis . Hyperhidrosis is more commonly experienced in those with diabetes and may signal a need for tighter glucose management. Anhidrosis or reduced or absent sweating is less common but may be experienced in the feet or legs of people with diabetic neuropathy.
Research shows that up to 84% of people with diabetes experience sweating when theyre hypoglycemic, with the most common sweat area being behind the neck. Fortunately sweating in those with diabetes is often due to mildly low blood sugar episodes that usually go away shortly after you take in some sugar.
How Does High Blood Sugar Affect The Body
High sugar in the blood can lead to a number of other symptoms and complications. Here are just a few.
Urination and thirst: High blood sugar goes into the kidneys and urine. This attracts more water, causing frequent urination. This can also lead to increased thirst, despite drinking enough liquids.
Weight loss: High blood sugar can cause sudden or unexplained weight loss. This occurs because the bodys cells are not getting the glucose they need, so the body burns muscle and fat for energy instead.
Numbness and tingling: High blood sugar can also cause numbness, burning, or tingling in the hands, legs, and feet. This is due to diabetic neuropathy, a complication of diabetes that often occurs after many years of high blood sugar levels.
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Exercise Food And Alcohol
For people with type 1 diabetes, maintaining the correct blood glucose level involves balancing how much insulin you inject, the amount of food you eat, and how much energy you burn during exercise.
Hypoglycaemia may occur if you’ve taken your dose of insulin as usual, but your carbohydrate intake is lower than normal or has been used up more quickly. This may happen if you delay or miss a meal or snack, don’t eat enough carbohydrate, or exercise more than usual.
People with diabetes who’ve drunk too much alcohol, or drank alcohol on an empty stomach, can also get hypoglycaemia.
However, it’s not always possible to identify why a particular episode of hypoglycaemia has occurred, and sometimes it happens for no obvious reason.
How To Ease The Symptoms
If you have excessive sweating and would like to ease the symptoms, you can make some simple lifestyle changes to help.
Wear clothing and socks that are made of natural materials.
Make sure you shower daily and apply antiperspirant. You can also apply astringent products topically to the area of sweat.
Change your clothes, socks, and shoes often, making sure you keep your feet dry.
Choose clothes that are appropriate to your exercise/activity level. If you have sweating related to stress, then incorporate some relaxation techniques into your routine.
If you are sweating because of low blood sugar, taking a glucose tablet can also be helpful.
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Natural Treatment For High Blood Pressure
Preventing high blood pressure is key, however, there are natural treatment options available that could help to reduce your blood pressure.
Managing stress with meditation or deep-breathing exercises Quit smoking Eating more food rich in calcium and magnesium
Eating foods rich in potassium can help
In Addition to the options listed above, there are several natural supplements that may also help to lower blood pressure or prevent it from elevating, to begin with.
Berberine
The Connection Between Diabetes And Sweating
When a person has a systemic disease that involves a metabolic impairment, sweating disorders can happen too.
This is because when there is metabolic impairment, several symptoms can occur, including the following:
- Autonomic failures
- Abnormal skin innervation
- Sweat gland dysfunction
The above disorders and dysfunctions can interact with each other in diverse ways, leading to things such as excessive sweating, for example.
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How Heat Can Affect Your Medication
Most types of insulin can tolerate temperatures up to 93-95 degrees Fahrenheit. Exposing your supply to anything higher than this will make the medication quickly break down. Be careful and pay attention to any insulin youre carrying with you in the heat.
While its fine to store insulin and glucagon in the refrigerator, hot temperatures will cause the medications to degrade, making them ineffective and unusable. High temperatures can have a negative effect on other medications and diabetes management supplies too. Dont forget about the weathers effect on things like test strips and monitoring devices. When the mercury begins to rise, these items can change in their effectiveness.
Warning Signs Of Low Blood Sugar
Hypoglycemia can cause both short- and long-term complications. Know the signs so that you can treat the condition as soon as you’re aware of it.
As a person living with diabetes, you know how important it is to reduce blood sugar when it is too high, a phenomenon called hyperglycemia. But blood sugar that is too low, or hypoglycemia, is equally critical to avoid.
“Hypoglycemia happens when the amount of blood glucose drops to a level that’s too low to sustain normal functioning,” says Erin Palinski-Wade, RD, CDCES, who is based in Sparta, New Jersey. “In most people, this is defined as a blood sugar level at or below 70 milligrams per deciliter .”
Hypoglycemia is common among people with type 2 diabetes, according to a review published in June 2015 in the journal PLoS One. Individuals with the condition had an average of 19 mild or moderate episodes of hypoglycemia per year and nearly one severe episode per year on average, according to the researchers. Low blood sugar was particularly common among those taking insulin.
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This decrease in blood sugar levels can cause both short-term complications, like confusion and dizziness, as well as more serious issues, including seizures, coma, and, rarely, death, according to the American Diabetes Association .
Hypoglycemia is usually the result of a too-high dose of insulin or a change in diet or exercise habits, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
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If Excessive Sweating Is Caused By Diabetes You Need To Bring Your Glucose Levels Under Control Read On To Know The Other Medical Conditions And Diseases That Can Cause Excessive Sweating Or Hyperhidrosis
Written by Longjam Dineshwori | Updated : March 18, 2021 9:44 AM IST
You may sweat more when it’s hot or you’re working out at the gym, that’s normal. Sweating in such situation is a normal reaction and helps regulate your body temperature. When your body’s working harder, your sweat glands releases a salt-based fluid in response to cool itself down. But if you sweat excessively for no reason, even when the temperature is mild, and you don’t have a fever and you’re working out, then it’s not normal. Sometimes excessive sweating or hyperhidrosis could indicate a serious medical condition like thyroid problems, diabetes or infection. People who are overweight and who have anxiety disorders may also sweat more than other people. But anxious sweating is different from hyperhidrosis. Should you see a doctor if you feel you sweat more than other people and beyond your body’s need to sweat? Excessive sweating is harmless in most cases, but if you have secondary general hyperhidrosis, it is advisable to see a doctor.
As the name suggests, focal or localized hyperhidrosis only affects specific parts of the body, such as the underarms, groin, head, face, hands, or feet. Although the exact cause of the condition is still not clear, experts believe it may result from a minor malfunction in the nervous system. Some studies suggest that it could run in families.
When Blood Sugar Is Too Low
Glucose is a sugar that comes from the foods we eat, and it’s also formed and stored inside the body. It’s the main source of energy for the cells of our body, and is carried to each cell through the bloodstream. Our brains depend on glucose to function, even when we’re sleeping.
The is the amount of glucose in the blood. When these levels drop too low, it’s called hypoglycemia . Very low blood sugar levels can cause serious symptoms that need to be treated right away.
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People With Both Type 1 And Type 2 Diabetes Feel The Heat More Than People Who Dont Have Diabetes Here Are A Few Tips
Extreme heat with diabetes can be dangerous. High heat affects blood glucose levels. Recently, extreme heat has been reported in the United States and Europe. Heat and moderate to high activity can make you sweat profusely, and people with diabetes may become dehydrated, leading to a rise in glucose levels. People with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes feel the heat more than people who dont have diabetes. Here are the reasons why:
- Certain diabetes complications, such as damage to blood vessels and nerves, can affect your sweat glands so your body cant cool as effectively. That can lead to heat exhaustion and heat stroke, which are medical emergencies.
- People with diabetes get dehydrated more quickly in high heat. Not drinking enough liquids can raise blood glucose, and high blood glucose can make you urinate more, causing dehydration.
- High temperatures and heat can change how your body uses insulin. You may need to test your blood glucose more often and adjust your insulin dose and what you eat and drink.
Even when it doesnt seem very hot outside, the combination of heat and humidity can be dangerous. When sweat evaporates on your skin, it removes heat and cools you. Its harder to stay cool in high humidity because sweat cant evaporate as well.
Overdose Of Diabetes Medication
A common cause of hypoglycaemia is taking too much insulin for your current needs. Insulin is a medication that helps control your blood glucose levels. It’s commonly used to treat type 1 diabetes and is also recommended for some people with type 2 diabetes.
A fall in blood glucose levels can also occur after taking too much oral hypoglycaemia medication, such as sulphonylurea, which causes a release of insulin. This medication is often used to lower blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes.
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Diabetes And Excessive Sweating: Causes And Treatment Options
How often do you find yourself sweating excessively without any clear reason?
Excessive sweating as a person with diabetes isnt a common topic of discussion, but youre definitely not the only one dealing with it.
There are actually a number of reasons diabetes may be causing that extra sweating.
In this article, well discuss different aspects of diabetes that can lead to excessive sweating and what you can do about it.
Menopause Menstruation And Pregnancy
Have you ever thought you might smell different during your period? Research has found that women at high fertility within their menstrual cycle actually put out a different, perceived to be more attractive, scent to men than those at low fertility in their cycle.
This scent was even suggested to influence womens interactions with other women, as fertility apparently smells good to everyone.
Other times, hormone fluctuations may cause a change in body odor or vaginal odor. This may not necessarily be unpleasant just different. A subtle smell isnt cause for concern, and instead may be due to pregnancy, menopause, or menstruation.
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Keep Your Room Cool At Night
When night sweats become a problem, it can help to keep the room cooler and to run a fan. If you feel hot at night, sleeping with lighter or fewer blankets can also help. Cotton sheets tend to be more breathable. Managing your sleeping environment is an important part of countering bothersome nighttime sweating.
How To Control Blood Sugar Levels At Night
- Before going to bed: Check your glucose levels and take steps to make sure they wont sink too low overnight.
- In the hours leading up to bed: Avoid alcohol, and try not to eat hot and spicy food these can lead to night sweats even in non-diabetics.
- Earlier in the day: Consider changing your routine so that you can fit exercise in during the daytime. This will ensure you have time to replenish glucose stores before it is time to sleep.
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How Heat Can Affect You
Dr. Hamaty says the extreme heat of summer affects blood sugar levels. How the heat affects your levels depends on what youve eaten, whether youre well-hydrated and your activity level.
If the heat and your activity makes you sweat a lot, you may become dehydrated, leading to a rise in glucose levels. If you become dehydrated, your blood glucose levels will rise. This can lead to frequent urination, which then leads to further dehydration and even higher blood sugar levels a kind of vicious cycle, he says.
Things can become even worse if the treatment includes insulin: Dehydration reduces blood supply to your skin and, therefore, the ability of your body to absorb the insulin youve injected is reduced, he says.
Roller Coaster: Female Hormones
When a woman’s hormones change, so does their blood sugar. Keep a monthly record of your levels to get a better idea of how your menstrual cycle affects you. Hormone changes during menopause may make blood sugar even harder to control. Talk to your doctor about whether hormone replacement therapy is a good idea.
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Can Diabetes Cause Night Sweats
- Did you know that if you enjoy a glass of wine or beer before bed, you may be stopping your liver functioning to produce glucose overnight? If youve ever woken up in a cold sweat after a night out this is the cause!
- Exercising lots during the day can mean you use up your bodys stores of glucose if you dont replenish these before bed you could suffer from nocturnal hypoglycemia..
Your Blood Sugar Knows Best
Kids out of school, vacations, get-togethers, family reunions. The summer season can throw off your routine, and possibly your diabetes management plan. Check your blood sugar more often to make sure its in your target range no matter what the summer brings. Its especially important to recognize what low blood sugar feels like and treat it as soon as possible.
Play it safe in the sun with a hat and sunglasses.
Warm-weather wisdom:
- Drink plenty of watereven if youre not thirstyso you dont get dehydrated.
- Avoid alcohol and drinks with caffeine, like coffee and energy or sports drinks. They can lead to water loss and spike your blood sugar levels.
- Check your blood sugar before, during, and after youre active. You may need to change how much insulin you use. Ask your doctor if you would like help in adjusting your dosage.
- Wear loose-fitting, lightweight, light-colored clothing.
- Wear sunscreen and a hat when youre outside. Sunburn can raise your blood sugar levels.
- Dont go barefoot, even on the beach or at the pool.
- Use your air conditioner or go to an air-conditioned building or mall to stay cool. In very high heat, a room fan wont cool you enough.
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