Diabetes and stress?!
Question: Does stress cause A diabetic's suger to jump up and down like a yo yo?
Answers: Does stress cause A diabetic's suger to jump up and down like a yo yo?
Here are some symptoms.
Common symptoms of both major types of diabetes
Fatigue: In diabetes, the body is inefficient and sometimes unable to use glucose for fuel. The body switches over to metabolizing fat, partially or completely, as a fuel source. This process requires the body to use more energy. The end result is feeling fatigued or constantly tired.
Unexplained weight loss: People with diabetes are unable to process many of the calories in the foods they eat. Thus, they may lose weight even though they eat an apparently appropriate or even excessive amount of food. Losing sugar and water in the urine and the accompanying dehydration also contributes to weight loss.
Excessive thirst (polydipsia): A person with diabetes develops high blood sugar levels. The body tries to counteract this by sending a signal to the brain to dilute the blood, which translates into thirst. The body encourages more water consumption to dilute the high blood sugar back to normal levels and to compensate for the water lost by excessive urination.
Excessive urination (polyuria): Another way the body tries to get rid of the extra sugar in the blood is to excrete it in the urine. This can also lead to dehydration because excreting the sugar carries a large amount of water out of the body along with it.
Excessive eating (polyphagia): If the body is able, it will secrete more insulin in order to try to deal with the excessive blood sugar levels. Also the body is resistant to the action of insulin in type 2 diabetes. One of the functions of insulin is to stimulate hunger. Therefore, higher insulin levels lead to increased hunger and eating. Despite increased caloric intake, the person may gain very little weight and may even lose weight.
Poor wound healing: High blood sugar levels prevent white blood cells, which are important in defending the body against bacteria and also in cleaning up dead tissue and cells, from functioning normally. When these cells do not function properly, wounds take much longer to heal and become infected more frequently. Also, long-standing diabetes is associated with thickening of blood vessels, which prevents good circulation and our body tissues from getting enough oxygen and other nutrients.
Infections: Certain infection syndromes, such as frequent yeast infections of the genitals, skin infections, and frequent urinary tract infections, may result from suppression of the immune system by diabetes and by the presence of glucose in the tissues, which allows bacteria to grow well. They can also be an indicator of poor blood sugar control in a person known to have diabetes.
Altered mental status: Agitation, unexplained irritability, inattention, extreme lethargy, or confusion can all be signs of very high blood sugar, ketoacidosis, or hyperosmolar hyperglycemia nonketotic syndrome or hypoglycemia (low sugar). Thus, any of these merit the immediate attention of a medical professional. Call your health care provider or 911.
Blurry vision: Blurry vision is not specific for diabetes but is frequently present with high blood sugar levels.
Diabetes can and often does go undiagnosed because the symptoms can seem harmless and oftentimes normal.
Some diabetes symptoms include:
Frequent urination
Excessive thirst
Extreme hunger
Unusual weight loss
Increased fatigue
Irritability
Blurry vision
Type 1 Diabetes Symptoms
Frequent urination
Excessive thirst
Extreme hunger
Unusual weight loss
Increased fatigue
Irritability
Blurry vision
Type 2 Diabetes Symptoms
Blurry vision
Cuts or sores that are slow to heal
Itchy skin, yeast infections
Increased thirst
Dry mouth
Need to urinate often
Leg pain
Early diabetes symptoms can be subtle or seemingly harmless - if you have them at all. In fact, you could have diabetes for months or even years and not even know it.
In the United States alone, more than 6 million people are unaware that they have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. But you don't need to become a statistic. Understanding possible diabetes symptoms can lead to early diagnosis and treatment - and a lifetime of better health.
Excessive thirst and increased urination
Excessive thirst and increased urination are classic diabetes symptoms.
When you have diabetes, excess sugar (glucose) builds up in your blood. Your kidneys are forced to work overtime to filter and absorb the excess sugar. If your kidneys can't keep up, the excess sugar is excreted into your urine along with fluids drawn from your tissues. This triggers more frequent urination, which may leave you dehydrated. As you drink more fluids to quench your thirst, you'll urinate even more.
Flu-like feeling
Sometimes diabetes symptoms resemble a flu-like illness. You may notice fatigue, weakness and loss of appetite. That's because poorly controlled diabetes hampers your body's ability to use sugar for energy. Instead of fueling your cells, the sugar remains in your blood. This leaves you feeling tired and run down.
Weight loss or gain
Weight fluctuations also fall under the umbrella of possible diabetes symptoms. When you lose sugar through frequent urination, you also lose calories. At the same time, diabetes may keep the sugar from your food from reaching your cells - leading to constant hunger. The combined effect is potentially rapid weight loss, especially if you have type 1 diabetes.
Weight gain is a concern, too. Excess weight can make your tissues more resistant to the action of insulin, which increases your blood sugar level. And the more fatty tissue you have, the more resistant your cells become. That's why being overweight is a prime risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes.
Blurred vision
Diabetes symptoms sometimes settle in the eyes. High levels of blood sugar pull fluid from your tissues, including the lenses of your eyes. This affects your ability to focus.
Left untreated, diabetes can cause new blood vessels to form in your retina - the back part of your eye - as well as damage old vessels. For most people this causes only mild vision problems, such as dark spots, flashing lights or rings around lights. But for others, the effects can be much more serious. In some cases, diabetes can lead to blindness.
Slow-healing sores or frequent infections
High levels of blood sugar impair your body's natural healing process and your ability to fight infections. For women, bladder and vaginal infections are especially common.
Tingling hands and feet
Excess sugar in your blood can lead to nerve damage. You may notice tingling and loss of sensation in your hands and feet, as well as burning pain in your arms, hands, legs and feet.
Red, swollen, tender gums
Diabetes may weaken your ability to fight germs, which increases the risk of infection in your gums and in the bones that hold your teeth in place. Your gums may pull away from your teeth, your teeth may become loose, or you may develop sores or pockets of pus in your gums - especially if you have a gum infection before diabetes develops.
Take your body's hints seriously
If you notice any possible diabetes symptoms, contact your doctor. The earlier the condition is diagnosed, the sooner treatment can begin. Diabetes is a serious condition. But with your active participation and the support of your health care team, you can manage diabetes while enjoying an active, healthy life.
Stress results when something causes your body to behave as if it were under attack. Sources of stress can be physical, like injury or illness. Or they can be mental, like problems in your marriage, job, health, or finances.
When stress occurs, the body prepares to take action. This preparation is called the fight-or-flight response. In the fight-or-flight response, levels of many hormones shoot up. Their net effect is to make a lot of stored energy - glucose and fat - available to cells. These cells are then primed to help the body get away from danger.
In people who have diabetes, the fight-or-flight response does not work well. Insulin is not always able to let the extra energy into the cells, so glucose piles up in the blood.
Many sources of stress are not short-term threats. For example, it can take many months to recover from surgery. Stress hormones that are designed to deal with short-term danger stay turned on for a long time. As a result, long-term stress can cause long-term high blood glucose levels.
Many long-term sources of stress are mental. Your mind sometimes reacts to a nondangerous event as if it were a real threat. Like physical stress, mental stress can be short term - from taking a test to getting stuck in a traffic jam. It can also be long term: from working for a demanding boss to taking care of an aging parent. In mental stress, the body pumps out hormones to no avail. Neither fighting nor fleeing is any help when the "enemy" is your own mind.
How Stress Affects Diabetes
In people with diabetes, stress can alter blood glucose levels. It does this in two ways. First, people under stress may not take good care of themselves. They may drink more alcohol or exercise less. They may forget, or not have time, to check their glucose levels or plan good meals. Second, stress hormones may also alter blood glucose levels directly.
Scientists have studied the effects of stress on glucose levels in animals and people. Diabetic mice under physical or mental stress have elevated glucose levels. The effects in people with type 1 diabetes are more mixed. While most people's glucose levels go up with mental stress, others' glucose levels can go down. In people with type 2 diabetes, mental stress often raises blood glucose levels.
Physical stress, such as illness or injury, causes higher blood glucose levels in people with either type of diabetes.
For some people with diabetes, controlling stress with relaxation therapy seems to help. It is more likely to help people with type 2 diabetes than people with type 1 diabetes. This difference makes sense. Stress blocks the body from releasing insulin in people with type 2 diabetes, so cutting stress may be more helpful for these people. People with type 1 diabetes don't make insulin, so stress reduction doesn't have this effect. Reducing stress can help people with type 1 diabetes take better care of themselves.
Some people with type 2 diabetes may also be more sensitive to some of the stress hormones. Relaxing can help by blunting this sensitivity.
It's easy to find out whether mental stress affects your glucose control. Before checking your glucose levels, write down a number rating your mental stress level on a scale of 1 to 10. Then write down your glucose level next to it. After a week or two, look for a pattern. Drawing a graph may help you see trends better. Do high stress levels often occur with high glucose levels, and low stress levels with low glucose levels? If so, stress may affect your glucose control.
Stress and Personality
You have some control over your reaction to stress. You can learn to relax and reverse the body's hormonal response to stress. And, of course, you may be able to change your life to relieve sources of stress.
Something else that affects people's responses to stress is coping style. Coping style is how a person deals with stress. For example, some people have a problem-solving attitude. They say to themselves, "What can I do about this problem?" They try to change their situation to get rid of the stress.
Other people talk themselves into accepting the problem as okay. They say to themselves, "This problem really isn't so bad after all."
These two methods of coping are usually helpful. People who use them tend to have less blood glucose elevation in response to mental stress.
Learning to Relax
There are many ways to help yourself relax:
Breathing exercises. Sit or lie down and uncross your legs and arms. Take in a deep breath. Then push out as much air as you can. Breathe in and out again, this time relaxing your muscles on purpose while breathing out. Keep breathing and relaxing for 5 to 20 minutes at a time. Do the breathing exercises at least once a day.
Progressive relaxation therapy. In this technique, which you can learn in a clinic or from an audio tape, you tense muscles, then relax them.
Exercise. Another way to relax your body is by moving it through a wide range of motion. Three ways to loosen up through movement are circling, stretching, and shaking parts of your body. To make this exercise more fun, move with music.
Replace bad thoughts with good ones. Each time you notice a bad thought, purposefully think of something that makes you happy or proud. Or memorize a poem, prayer, or quote and use it to replace a bad thought.
Whatever method you choose to relax, practice it. Just as it takes weeks or months of practice to learn a new sport, it takes practice to learn relaxation.
Other Ways to Reduce Mental Stress
You may be able to get rid of some stresses of life. If traffic upsets you, for example, maybe you can find a new route to work or leave home early enough to miss the traffic jams. If your job drives you crazy, apply for a transfer if you can, or possibly discuss with your boss how to improve things. As a last resort, you can look for another job. If you are at odds with a friend or relative, you can make the first move to patch things up. For such problems, feeling stressed may be a sign that changes are called for.
Some sources of stress are never going to go away, no matter what you do. Having diabetes is one of those. Still, there are ways to reduce the stresses of living with diabetes. Support groups can help. Knowing other people in the same situation helps you feel less alone. You can also learn other people's hints for coping with problems. Making friends in a support group can lighten the burden of diabetes-related stresses.
There are other ways to fight stress as well. Sometimes adding positive things to your life can help. You can start an exercise program or join a sports team. You can take dance lessons or join a dancing club. You can start a new hobby or learn a new craft. You can volunteer at a hospital or charity.
Dealing directly with diabetes-related stress can also help. Think about the aspects of life with diabetes that are the most stressful for you. It might be taking your medication, or checking your blood glucose levels regularly, or exercising, or eating as you should.
yup, stress causes the release of cortisol, a natural steroid which causes the pancreas to release less insulin (part of the fight or flight process) and therefore make yo sugar jump.
Yes stress does affect BGL. My son will go high for long periods of time if stressed/excited (happy) about doing something. Also has in the past remained very LOW for a 2 week period because he did not want to participate in an activity at school. We could not keep him above 4 even with the pump on 1/2 basal rate (or off often) for 2 weeks. Nearly put him in hospital. When the event (which he did not participate in) was over BGL back to normal within 3 hrs - go figure. I have seen stress/motions affect his BGL severally. Very worrying and difficult to manage.
Tracy
Stress and anxiety makes my BG soar.
Yes! (mostly up) And illness as well.
Yes, stress can cause your sugars to jump up. If I am going through a very stressful time (emotional) my sugars are higher. Also if I am sick (physical), expecially when I am vomitting my sugars are 500+ and thank God when I get sick, it is not for very long, because I can never get them down.