Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Diabetes Type 1

Diabetes means your blood glucose, or blood sugar, is too high. With Type 1 diabetes, your pancreas does not make insulin. Insulin is a hormone that helps glucose get into your cells to give them energy. Without insulin, too much glucose stays in your blood. Over time, high blood glucose can lead to serious problems with your heart, eyes, kidneys, nerves, and gums and teeth.
Type 1 diabetes happens most often in children and young adults but can appear at any age. Symptoms may include
>Being very thirsty
>Urinating often
>Feeling very hungry or tired
>Losing weight without trying
>Having sores that heal slowly
>Having dry, itchy skin
>Losing the feeling in your feet or having tingling in your feet
>Having blurry eyesight
A blood test can show if you have diabetes. If you do, you will need to take insulin for the rest of your life

Diabetes and Pregnancy

Diabetes is a disease in which your blood glucose, or sugar, levels are too high. When you are pregnant, too much glucose is not good for your baby. Out of every 100 pregnant women in the United States, between three and eight get gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes is diabetes that happens for the first time when a woman is pregnant. Gestational diabetes goes away when you have your baby, but it does increase your risk for having diabetes later.
If you have already have diabetes before you get pregnant, you need to monitor and control your blood sugar levels.
Either type of diabetes during pregnancy raises the risk of problems for the baby and the mother. To help reduce these risks, you should follow your meal plan, exercise, test your blood sugar and take your medicine.

Breathing Problems

When you're short of breath, it's hard or uncomfortable for you to take in the oxygen your body needs. You may feel as if you're not getting enough air. Sometimes mild breathing problems are from a stuffy nose or hard exercise. But shortness of breath can also be a sign of a serious disease. Many conditions can make you feel short of breath. Lung conditions such as asthma, emphysema or pneumonia cause breathing difficulties. Heart disease can make you feel breathless if your heart cannot pump enough blood to supply oxygen to your body. Stress caused by anxiety can also make it hard for you to breathe. If you often have trouble breathing, it is important to find out the cause

Asthma

Asthma is a chronic disease that affects your airways. Your airways are tubes that carry air in and out of your lungs. If you have asthma, the inside walls of your airways become sore and swollen. That makes them very sensitive, and they may react strongly to things that you are allergic to or find irritating. When your airways react, they get narrower and your lungs get less air. This can cause wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and trouble breathing, especially early in the morning or at night.
When your asthma symptoms become worse than usual, it's called an asthma attack. In a severe asthma attack, the airways can close so much that your vital organs do not get enough oxygen. People can die from severe asthma attacks.
Asthma is treated with two kinds of medicines: quick-relief medicines to stop asthma symptoms and long-term control medicines to prevent symptoms