Bad complications

Hi and welcome to the Diabetes Forum. I don't know the answer to your question about how long it would take for bad complications to show up from diabetes.

Complications vary and the length of time of having uncontrolled blood sugar varies with different people, so no one can tell you that a certain blood sugar level for so many years would lead to: amputation, blindness, kidney problems, heart problems. Neuropathy can lead to amputation and untreated glaucoma and other eye problems from diabetes can lead to blindness.

To hopefully prevent any complications, we need to keep our blood sugar as close to 'normal' as we can. This is done by diet, exercise and medications - sometimes alone or in combinations.

Diet would mean low-carb and that would be not eating a lot of food made with flour or grains like bread, cereal, pasta, crackers. And not eating a lot of potatoes and rice or any food made with sugar. In the old days, like when I was a kid and I'm 68 now, people didn't think of staying away from bread if they were diabetic. They thought they couldn't eat cakes, or pies or cookies, but reality flour (any flour: whole wheat, whole grain, oat, rye) is just as bad in the long run as sugar. Honey and real maple syrup is as bad as sugar.

Why? It's the carbs and carbs raise blood sugar very high. The best way to keep a steady, near normal blood sugar is to have protein, vegetables (not potatoes), salads, fresh leafy greens cooked or raw, some nuts, some dairy and some fruit.

Please check out the website that has a link in my profile for more information about blood sugar.

So, I hope you're doing well on the metformin and Januvia. Be sure to test and eat wisely! If you can keep your A1c lower than 6.2, that would be great - although closer to normal would be in the 5's. If you are able to exercise a little, walking, swimming, biking on a stationary bike, that would help your heart and circulation as well as your blood sugar.

My mother had a leg amputated when she was 72 also but that was over 35 years ago and they didn't have personal blood sugar meters and they weren't as knowledgeable about diet as we are today. Even if we are diagnosed later in life, we can still help ourselves and avoid complications by following a good eating plan and exercising the best way we can!

I'm glad you posted! Please ask any questions you have!

I haven't been checking my blood sugar because, my battery went out, I got a new one, but haven't put it in because I'm not tech minded and I don't like to do stuff like that.

Didn't take my blood sugar before for months because I didn't have a place in my entire house to take it.

I can come up with any number of excuses why I don't take my blood sugar, but since reading these above accounts about the need to take your blood sugar, I'm going to put that on my list.

As for the person above who was cutting back but not stopping sugar, but worrying about complications, I would try to put some of that worry into trying to cut out sugar as much as possible.

I know it's in some foods, like my pork and beans has 6 grams of sugar, but my home health care person said I could even eliminate that by opening the can, putting it under the tap water, and washing out the sugar like that.

Same with canned fruit which has fructose or fruit sugar. I open the can, and I wash out the sugar.

Ingenious. I don't have to look all over town for pork and beans, and canned fruit which are lower in sugar. I just use the cans I've got and wash out the sugar.

I gave up sugar because of another health problem, and it was pretty easy to do. I just thought about how many problems sugar gave me instead of thinking about how wonderful sugar was, and I gave up sugar.

Post Edited (Tim Tam) : 2/2/2017 9:41:37 AM (GMT-7)

diabetes is a silent creeper. that's what it is known as in the community. it crept up om ne and i copped most of them, heart, eyes, teeth and small veins in other areas. it does not care, nor discriminate. that's the point. take care.

Yes, I think it's easier to use a colander to rinse the beans.