Looking back now (what's that saying about hindsight being 20/20) it all seems so clear. But at the time I didn't even consider that I could be a diabetic. I'd had a heart attack a couple of years before, and while I was showing all the classic symptoms of type 2 diabetes -- always thirsty, always hungry, always tired, and usually cranky -- I put it all down to side effects form all the blood pressure and heart medications I was now on.
It wasn't until about two years later when I was back in the emergency room for more chest pains, and the emergency doctor there asked me how long I had been diabetic, that I clued in. He was pretty shocked to hear me say that I wasn't a diabetic, or if I was then no one had bothered to tell me about it.
Needless to say, I have been very proactive in my own care since then, and you should be proactive in your own health care too. If you have any of these type 2 diabetes symptoms, make sure you see your doctor and get tested:
- frequent thirst
- frequent urination
- feeling hungry all the time
- blurry vision
- frequent infections (such as yeast infections)
- unexplained weight loss
- tired all the time
- cuts that take a long time to heal.
I know that type 2 diabetes is a diagnosis that no one wants to hear. But believe me, it's better to hear it early on so that you can reduce the risk of complications. Waiting for two or three years to find out for sure means that many of the complications such as foot problems, eye problems, and kidney problems will have already started to develop.
Knowing what the type 2 diabetes symptoms are is just the first step in saving yourself from a lifetime of health problems.
