Diabetes and being ill

Feeling ill can cause your blood sugar to go all over. Because let’s face it, diabetes would be far too easy otherwise.

Whether it’s a cold, a headache, sickness, a hangover, or any other illness you can name, your body will conspire against you to make things trickier. I’ve got some tricks of my own to help you fight back.

Diabetes and Covid-19

Do diabetics needs to shelter due to Covid-19?

Type 1 diabetics are no more likely to catch Covid than anyone else, but the effects of it might be worse. Illness messes with our blood sugar levels, and Rona is an illness like we’ve never seen before.

Are diabetics more like to suffer with Covid-19?

When diabetics get ill, our bodies produce more sugar to try and give us the energy to fight the illness off. This makes it hard to manage our blood sugar levels. Covid-19 will have the same effect, along with all the other nasties that it’s best off avoiding.

Are diabetics more at risk to Covid-19?

Covid-19 can cause serious complications to diabetics, potentially causing more severe symptoms and making your diabetes harder to manage. My advice is to avoid catching it if you can.

How does illness affect diabetes?

When you’re unwell, your body wants to get you better. That’s why it makes you sneeze, cough, vomit and sweat - it’s trying to get the sickness out however it can.

It also wants to give you extra energy so you’ll feel up for fighting things off. It wants you to get out of bed and off to the chemist. It does this by pumping sugar around your body, which as you can guess, is problematic for diabetics.

How can you stop high blood sugar when you're ill?

To be frank, stopping high blood sugar when you’re unwell is a bit of a losing battle. If you keep trying to correct it, your body will likely keep pushing it back up.

Our best advice would be to talk to your diabetic specialist about changing your background insulin. Having a little more of this each day could help even things out.

Can diabetics get sugar-free medicine?

Sugar-free meds exist, but they’re rare and often not as effective as the sweeter alternatives. You won’t find a sugar-free Night Nurse, for example. For getting better faster, you may as well just accept the sugar content and go for the well-known brands.

You can find a lot of sugar-free cough sweets, however, and they’re just as good.

What does it mean to have ketones?

Ketones are a very specific illness that only diabetics tend to get. They're formed when too much sugar builds up in your system and your body can't cope with it. It needs energy, it can't get any from the sugar, so it start getting it by eating away at your fat reserves. What's left over is an acid called ketones. This is why lots of diabetics lose drastic amounts of weight before being diagnosed - your body is eating itself and leaving ketones behind.

If you constantly run with high blood sugar, ketones will build up. Too many of these could lead to something very serious called ketoacidosis. You do not want this. It can put you in a coma or even kill you if you don't treat it quickly.

How do diabetics check for ketones?

Most blood sugar meters include the option to test for ketones. Some require different test strips, while others can get the results from the same strip you check your blood sugar with.

Your doctor will make sure you've got this on your prescription. Generally if your blood sugar is good, you won't risk getting ketones. If it's been running high for a while, it is worth a check.

How do diabetics fix ketones?

If ketones show up on your test, it's time for action stations. Your first step here should always be to call your doctor. They'll likely advise that you take more insulin, in some cases doubling your regular dose. But don't do this without consulting with them first.

Call them now. Right this second. If the results are serious, they might tell you to go to hospital. You need to get that shit sorted.

What are the symptoms of ketoacidosis?

Ketoacidosis happens when ketones have been in your body for a long time. It is a very, very serious condition and needs to be treated as soon as possible.

If, as you read this, you start to notice symptoms that you're experiencing, call for an ambulance. You will need one.

If these are symptoms that you don't have, but just want to know about for the purpose of education, then put that phone down, sit back and learn.

Pear breath. One of the first things to look out for is a a weird scent on your breath, often described as smelling like pear drops. If you haven't eaten any pear drops recently, this should be cause for concern.

Dehydration. Like, desperate thirst. Remember how thirsty you were when you were diagnosed? It's that. It's back and it's out for revenge.

Sickness. Your body won't be accepting food. It won't know how. Acid will be building up in your stomach and eventually it will force its way out.

Weird breathing. Your breath will be heavy or rapid, like you've just done a tonne of exercise only without any of the health benefits.

Fast heartbeat. Like a small bird.

Confusion. You won't know where you are, what you're doing or why you're doing it. Your brain will be fried.

Coma. Alright, this is a pretty serious one. If you notice that you're in a coma it's probably too late for you to call for an ambulance. You will have to rely on the kindness of others. Ideally you'll have phoned for help before this happens.

Spot anything that looks familiar? Call an ambulance, stat.

Diabetes and mental illness

Mental illness and diabetes can, sadly, come hand in hand. It's no surprise really, given how draining it can feel to be constantly checking your blood sugar and struggling to understand what's happening. Depression and anxiety are two of the main offenders, and the consequences of either can quickly lead to things getting serious.

There are diabetics who get so depressed they stop taking insulin all together, which only makes them feel worse and, ultimately, get more depressed. While anxiety around injecting in public can cause serious long term issues.

When it comes to combatting mental illness, we're not really the experts in the matter. All we can say is tighter control of your blood sugar will generally leave you feeling better, both mentally and physically. But for more informed advice, Diabetes.co.uk is a good starting point.

You should also talk to your doctor. While mental illness can make you feel very alone, you should know you're not. Your doctor will have seen lots of cases just like yours - they'll know how to help.

You might want to read about: Spotting diabetes | Carb counting | Fixing lows | Correcting highs | Repeat prescriptions