Diabetic Ketoacidosis Symptoms

glucose in the blood) are easy to understand. No energy source, no function - and the first organ to go is the brain. It needs glucose to function and without it, the brain shuts down quickly. Confusion, lethargy, and coma occur quickly. It's interesting that brain cells don't need insulin to open their doors to glucose, so when people develop coma from low blood sugar, they waken almost instantaneously upon treatment. Blood sugar is one of the first things checked on scene of a comatose patient, because it's so easy to fix and very embarrassing for an EMT to miss.

And sometimes, too much - is too much. High blood glucose levels, or hyperglycemia, cause a cascade of effects that are damaging to the body in the short and long-term. In the long-term, abnormally high blood sugar causes damage to blood vessels leading to a variety of potential catastrophes; including but not limited to any system that has a blood supply, potentially leading to heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, blindness, and amputations. Add the increased risk of infection associated with hyperglycemia and there is great incentive to keep blood sugars tightly under control.

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