Diabetes is a condition in which a patient stops being able to use insulin. This may be a result of their body stopping producing insulin in the necessary amounts, or it might be due to a decreased insulin sensitivity, meaning that their body no longer responds correctly to the insulin that gets released.
Type 1 diabetes is the rarer form and will appear in young patients. Thus it is also called juvenile-onset diabetes, as well as insulin-dependent diabetes. Here, the cells that produce insulin are destroyed, preventing insulin from being produced at all. In type 2 diabetes on the other hand, the body becomes gradually less sensitive to insulin, which in turn causes the pancreas to produce less and less insulin, resulting in a deficiency.
Either way, this then triggers a cascade of unwanted side effects which can nevertheless be helpful in making a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. Read on and we’ll take a look at some of the most common symptoms of this life-changing condition so you can assess whether you might be at risk yourself.
1. Tiredness
One of the first and most notable signs of diabetes is tiredness. What is happening here is that you are eating and the food is being converted into glucose as usual. However, this glucose is then entering the blood and staying there, circulating rather than being absorbed. This then means that you’ll have high levels of the sugar in your system but you won’t be able to use them.
The result is that you feel low on energy as though you hadn’t eaten enough. You may find this makes you feel lethargic and low on motivation, or you might notice that it feels more effort getting out of bed. You might also get out of breath easily and start to struggle with physical activity.
