Everyone says that high blood sugar isn’t good for you, but most people don’t know why. Truly understanding the effects of high blood sugar will keep you motivated to not let it go off track and be ready to quickly correct it when it does. With consistent care and control, you can add extra years or even decades to your life.
Studies from the American Diabetes Association in 2015 showed that over 330,000 death certificates listed diabetes as part of the underlying cause of death – making it the 7th leading cause of death in the United States.
But the problem with statistics is that they don’t paint a picture. They only show numbers.
What made me take my blood sugar control serious was simple: I saw pictures and met people who didn’t take care of theirs. That’s when it hit me. These people were images of my future self if I didn’t do anything, and still are.
The Slow Killer
The short-term effects of having high blood sugar can make someone miserable, but they’re still tolerable. Heck, they may not even notice that something’s wrong. I didn’t for at least 3 months! The symptoms include always being tired, peeing a lot, losing weight very fast (I lost over 30 pounds in a month), always thirsty, craving sugary food and drinks, painful muscle cramps, dry mouth, and blurred vision.
However, the long-term effects of high blood sugar are a different story and most people don’t care about them because they develop at a glacial pace over years or decades. When you can’t see the long-term effects of anything, it’s easy to ignore preventative care. That’s why habits need to change way before the deadly long-term effects set in. Diabetes, if left untreated, is a slow and silent killer.
Throughout my life, I’ve met people who are blind, on dialysis, lost feeling in their hands and feet, and others who have lost limbs. I never knew why this happened to them but after getting diagnosed and educated, I learned that the extra sugar in their bloodstream destroyed their nerves and kidneys.
The Disease in My Family
My grandfather was type 2 diabetic since his forties. Like most older people, he was stubborn. He took pills and insulin but used them as an excuse. An excuse to continue drinking soda and eating sweets as if he were not diabetic because he didn’t want to “deprive himself”. As a 15-year-old kid, and even now, it was hard to understand how indulgence was prioritized over life, over being here on this planet with his family. It’s not like he was a grumpy old man who wanted to kick the bucket and be put out of his misery. He was a loving grandfather, so I was confused as to why he didn’t listen to his doctors who told him he would die if he didn’t get his sugar in control. At one point, they even talked about possibly amputating his leg, but he didn’t make any changes and he said that he’d rather die than “let them take my leg”. As if his leg had any sort of value to them. He was frequently in and out of the hospital up to his last days of living and died at the young age of 62.
After seeing him go through this, and now being diabetic myself, I don’t want to share his fate. And I learned that his reluctance to change was due to something deeper – a psychological habit that he was possibly not even aware of and something that people all over the world experience.
We don’t have a cure yet, but the good news is that there are ways to restore blood sugar levels to damn near that of a non-diabetic and prevent the ugly effects from happening.
Most of us don’t know how we’re going to die but if you knew that something was slowly killing you and there was something you can do about it, why wouldn’t you?
My next three articles are my responses when I asked myself this question. They are the three rules I follow daily to keep my blood sugar in check through the use of exercise, nutrition, and tracking.
You are awesome, Mijo!
So proud!
Thank you so much!!