Diabetes is a disease that occurs when there is too much sugar in your blood. This can cause damage to your heart, arteries, brain and other internal organs. Below are some of the common early signs of becoming a diabetic.
Dark Patches of Skin
One of the most common early signs of becoming diabetic is dark patches of skin. You may notice darkened areas of velvety or leathery skin on the folds of your body, such as the armpits, neck and groin. These patches happen when there is too much insulin and sugar in your blood, which causes the skin cells to reproduce rapidly.
Brain Fog
If there is too much sugar in your blood, it damages the small blood vessels in your brain. This causes you to lose concentration and focus. This can also affect your memory and you may begin to forget simple things, like where you put your keys.
Sweet Cravings
The next sign of prediabetes or insulin resistance is craving for sweet foods after a meal. When your blood sugars are not being controlled properly, you will often crave a sweet or sugary snack after a meal. This happens because your cells are not accepting sugar normally, which causes you to crave more sugar for an energy boost.
Tired After Meals
Often referred to “food coma”, you may feel sleepy after eating a meal. This is why elderly people often need to take a nap after eating, because the sugar in their blood is not feeding the cells properly due to insulin resistance.
Skin Irritation
Having lots of sugar in your blood weakens your immune system. This leaves your skin prone to bacterial and viral infections, which trigger boils and abscesses on the skin, and sometimes styes on the inside of the eyelid.
Belly Fat
When you have high amounts of sugar in your blood for long periods of time, your body converts it into fat, to preserve energy for the future. This causes weight gain around the belly area. It also causes your liver to become clogged up with fat and causes fatty liver disease.
Itchy Skin
One of the common early signs of becoming diabetic is dry, itchy patches of skin. The extra sugar and insulin in your blood, damages the blood vessels. This blocks the normal flow of nutrients to the skin. High sugars also depletes Vitamin B3, one of the most important skin vitamins.
Slow Healing
By damaging your blood vessels, the high sugar in the blood causes poor circulation. So it can take longer for a minor cut, bruise or wound to heal properly. This gets progressively worse as you become a diabetic.
Urination at Night
Another early diabetes symptom is the need to urinate more than once throughout the night. The extra blood sugar causes your body to hold more fluid. Your kidneys have to work overtime to filter the extra sugar in your blood, causing you urinate more frequently. This then makes you constantly thirsty, causing a vicious cycle.