Overview of Diabetes Mellitus: Symptoms, Types and Treatment

Diabetes Mellitus is a metabolic disorder resulting from either an inadequate production of insulin or an inability of the body’s cell to respond to insulin that is present. The absence or reduced insulin leading to persistent abnormally high blood sugar and glucose in-tolerance (Burke ,206). It is probably an oldest disease known to man and is also referred as black-death from the 14th century (Sharma 2018).

The disease leading to other problems like heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, eye problem, nerve damage, dental disease and foot problems also has a lot of signs and symptoms that help in the diagnosis. Excessive thirst, hunger and frequent urination being the biggest warning signs are caused by the too much sugar in the urine while the thirst is a sign for dehydration which then is a way for the body for get some fluids leading to frequent urination.

Weight loss, extreme fatigue, acetone breath, nausea and vomiting, blurred vision and itchiness in the genital area are the other common symptoms of diabetes.

Although diabetes is a chronic disease, it is easily managed by the patients in a lot of ways which are either medication, exercise and keeping track of the blood sugars near normal by balancing food intake with medication and exercises. Luan et al Huang explains that as the treatments are complex, the patients need to make numerous self-management decisions every day, and the management hence needs to be patient-centered, and the education method of the patients’ needs to be based on the chronic disease care model. In fact, diabetic self-management education and continuous self-management support can directly affect the efficacy of the diabetes treatment (Luan et al Huang, 2017). Effective self-management emphasizes that the patient initiatively undertakes the responsibility of self-management, caring about his/her health to maintain and improve the quality of life, actively monitoring the disease condition, maintaining life quality, and actively cooperating to complete the treatment.

Differentiated by how insulin works in the person’s body, type one diabetes is the insulin dependent diabetes and is usually begins during childhood and mostly genetic while type two is an autoimmune condition which is caused by the body attacking its own pancreas with antibodies. While type two diabetics can make their own insulin but cannot make enough, type one diabetics cannot make their own insulin due to the pancreas being damaged. People with type 1 diabetes may also experience irritability and mood changes, and unintentionally lose weight. People with type 2 diabetes on the other hand may have numbness and tingling in their hands or feet. Although many of the symptoms of type 1 and type 2 diabetes are similar, they present in very different ways. Many people with type 2 diabetes won’t have symptoms for many years but then often the symptoms of type 2 diabetes develop slowly over the course of time. Some people with type 2 diabetes have no symptoms at all and don’t discover their condition until complications develop (Burke et al., 2016).

Having risk factors of family history, age, geography and genetics is what puts a lot of people at a higher risk than others but despite all the risk factors, prevention of the disease is possible. This is done through living a much health lifestyle such as maintaining a healthy weight, increasing daily activities and eating a well-balanced diet while also reducing sugar and overly processed foods.

Management of diabetes has therefore moved from management of glycemic control and complications alone to considering the impact that diabetes and interventions have on individual residents and their ability to function independent (Wright,2013).

The biggest treatment of diabetes being medication, it is very important for diabetics to watch their medication and sugar levels. This is where a lot of the nursing interventions are put in place to help with the patients. For example, following a well-balanced diet, reducing weight, and following a regular physical exercise while maintaining blood glucose values that are normal as possible to help prevent acute and chronic complications (Burke et al, 206).

References

1. Burke, K. M., Mohan-Brown, E. L., & Eby, L. (2016). Medical-Surgical nursing care. (p. 406). Hoboken, NJ: Pearson
2. Kannan, P., Piaseu, N., Malathum, P., & Belza, B. (2019). Predictors of Diabetes Self-Management in Older Adults with Poorly Controlled Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Pacific Rim International Journal of Nursing Research, 23(4), 357–367. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=c8h&AN=138554427&site=ehost-live
3. Li-Li Luan, Jiao Yang, Yi-Fen He, Zhao-Xuan Huang, Liang Liu, & Zhao-Sui Huang. (2017). Impact of diabetes education and self-management support on the 4D series of diabetes patients. Biomedical Research (0970-938X), 28(3), 1172–1177. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=121809349&site=ehost-live