Diabetic Home Care Management

Type 2 Diabetes: Learn the Warning SignsDiabetes and Foot Problems SlideshowTake the Diabetes Quiz!Medical Author: Robert Ferry Jr., MD Robert Ferry Jr., MD

Robert Ferry Jr., MD, is a U.S. board-certified Pediatric Endocrinologist. After taking his baccalaureate degree from Yale College, receiving his doctoral degree and residency training in pediatrics at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA), he completed fellowship training in pediatric endocrinology at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

View Full Profile Medical Editor: William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR

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Diabetic Ketoacidosis Symptoms

Benjamin Wedro, MD, FACEP, FAAEM

Dr. Ben Wedro practices emergency medicine at Gundersen Clinic, a regional trauma center in La Crosse, Wisconsin. His background includes undergraduate and medical studies at the University of Alberta, a Family Practice internship at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and residency training in Emergency Medicine at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

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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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