Get Checked for Diabetes: 5 Reasons To
Diabetes is a very serious condition causing elevated sugar levels in the blood. There are many reasons to get checked out. Here are the top five:
1. You can Watch the Entire Movie!
One of the early symptoms of diabetes is the frequent need to urinate. For some diabetics, urination occurs many times within an hour. This impacts more than just watching movies. Commuting to work, flying in planes, going out socially are a few examples where frequent urination due to untreated diabetes will require planning and can cause some embarrassment.
2. You can Stay Frisky All Night (if you want)!
One of the unfortunate side effects of high blood sugar due to diabetes is intense tiredness. The main source of energy for your body is sugar or glucose. High blood sugar due to diabetes results from the body’s inability to take sugar from the blood and bring it into cells. This is similar to pulling into a gas pump but having no way of filling up. Treating diabetes increases the body’s ability to supply your cells with sugar effectively keeping your energy levels at a point where nibbling on someone’s ear is more important than snoring in it.
3. You can Safely Scratch an Itch!
Think about the last time you were stung by a mosquito. You 
scratched and rubbed until your skin was nearly raw. Eventually this would heal, right? Not the case with diabetes. The high level of glucose in the blood serves as food for the bacteria in this area. The damaged skin, instead of healing, would become infected and would heal very slowly, sometimes only with the help of antibiotics. Now imagine how long healing time would be if you ran through a rose garden with unregulated diabetes!
4. You can Count to 20 Using Fingers and Toes!
This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home, can’t really feel this little piggy, and this little piggy is gone…! Eventually, when cells don’t get glucose they die, regardless whether it is a nerve, muscle, or skin cell. In advanced diabetes nerve cells in the tips of your toes or fingers will be dying to the point where the nerves can no longer function. As this happens to the muscle and skin cells, the toes can die, develop gangrene, and eventually fall off. This sounds extreme, but often you wouldn’t even know it is happening because you can’t feel it. Sadly, at this stage, there is nothing that can be done to save the little piggies.
5. It’s Easy!
Initial testing is very easy. Maybe it’s even easier than very easy. All you have to do is pee in a cup and give it to a licensed medical practitioner for testing. If blood glucose is elevated, it will eventually appear in the urine and be detectable in a test that takes seconds. Passing up opportunities to participate in this test will have lifelong consequences.
If you often feel tired, think you drink and pee a lot, and find things heal very slowly it may be worth a quick trip to a local clinic or your family doctor.
