What Diabetes Does to Your Body
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Diabetes can damage blood cells. It puts you at risk for a heart attack, stroke, poor circulation, or other problems as a result. Damaged blood vessels in your kidneys can stop them from working the way they should.
When the damage happens to blood vessels in your eyes, you could develop visual problems. High blood sugar can injure your nerves. You may feel tingling, numbness, or pain in your fingers or toes. If there's damage to the nerves in your digestive tract, you could have digestion problems, like constipation or diarrhea.
Other nerve and blood vessel problems can cause erectile dysfunction. Problems on your skin are common with diabetes. Without treatment, ulcers and infections may not heal properly. To keep diabetes complications from happening, talk to your doctor. Medications and lifestyle changes like exercising, eating right, and quitting smoking can help you get your blood sugar under control.
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Diabetes is a long-lasting and progressive illness that makes it hard for your body to use sugar for energy. Normally, your pancreas makes a hormone called insulin that helps your cells take in sugar. But with diabetes, this process doesn't work the way it should, and sugar builds up in your blood. Over time, having too much sugar in your blood can harm your body. Diabetes can damage blood cells. It puts you at risk for a heart attack, stroke, poor circulation, or other problems as a result. Damaged blood vessels in your kidneys can stop them from working the way they should.
When the damage happens to blood vessels in your eyes, you could develop visual problems. High blood sugar can injure your nerves. You may feel tingling, numbness, or pain in your fingers or toes. If there's damage to the nerves in your digestive tract, you could have digestion problems, like constipation or diarrhea.
Other nerve and blood vessel problems can cause erectile dysfunction. Problems on your skin are common with diabetes. Without treatment, ulcers and infections may not heal properly. To keep diabetes complications from happening, talk to your doctor. Medications and lifestyle changes like exercising, eating right, and quitting smoking can help you get your blood sugar under control.
