You probably also have those days when everything goes wrong. You don’t want all the hassle of injecting, checking and everything that goes with it. Diabetes sucks! It’s not easy to motivate yourself on those days. You have to put in a lot of effort. And as if that isn’t enough, you’re threatened with complications later in life.

What are late complications exactly?

If your blood sugar level is constantly high, we know this can lead to serious complications to your eyes, heart and veins for example. The most commonly occurring complications related to diabetes are:

Eyes

The most common complications occur in the small blood vessels that supply your retina. This can lead to diminished eyesight.

Kidneys

Your kidneys can be damaged by high blood sugar levels.

Nervous system

Diabetes can cause the nerves in your extremities to become damaged, causing numbness and aching in the hands and feet. You may also experience metabolism issues, diarrhoea, low blood pressure, and erection problems (men only).

Cardiovascular disease

You can be more susceptible to artherosclerosis, which can cause cardiovascular disease.

Feet

It often starts with minor, common symptoms such as calluses, blisters, corns and cold feet. When the nerves in the feet are damaged, small wounds may not be noticed in time. These wounds can become infected and – in the worst cases – compromise the bone tissue.

Joints

You can be more susceptible to stiffness and soreness of the joints.

Coma

Extremely high or low blood sugar levels can lead to a coma and can be life-threatening.

What can you do about it?

If you keep your blood sugar level stable and live a healthy lifestyle (you exercise, do not smoke, are not overweight, and eat right) you can avoid a lot of complications later in life.

Henk Veeze, a paediatrician

We do see complications present in children who have lived with diabetes for years, but they’re not the same complications that are present in adults who have had diabetes for fifty years. In those days, there weren’t any insulin pumps or blood sugar level tests. So, the same types of complications are not common in children today, but we do sometimes see the beginnings of complications.
Fifty years ago, if a child was diagnosed with diabetes, the prognosis was not very good. With the treatments we have available nowadays, the prospects are much more positive. This is not to say that there can’t be any complications, you do have to stick to the treatment at all times. But what we do see is that the number of complications becomes smaller. And we hope that newer, better ways to treat diabetes continue to be discovered.