When should I get emergency care if I have diabetes?
A really serious problem that people with diabetes have is that they end up getting amputations of their feet and legs. In fact it's the #1 reason for amputations in the United States, separate, of course, from motor vehicle accidents. It turns out the most reasons people need amputations is because they get a little tiny cut or sore in their foot and they have what we call "diabetic neuropathy" which means they can't feel that. Not everybody with diabetes has neuropathy, but those who have nerve damage can't feel that little cut or sore and then it will spread and it can get bigger and bigger and then go to the bone and then they'll end up losing their foot. However, if people with diabetes check their feet every day and call the doctor if they see anything abnormal, they can prevent anything bad from happening. There are many other reasons that people with diabetes can go to the hospital or the emergency room. Sometimes it's because they run out of their medication. Sometimes it's because they didn't give enough insulin because they were infected and their blood sugars went up real high. If someone with diabetes on insulin is vomiting and can't keep down food, they don't have any sugar to feed the insulin with and they have to go to the hospital. Low blood sugar reactions can also require someone to go to the hospital. A low blood sugar reaction means that the blood sugar has fallen so low that a person can fall into a coma. Now, the good news about that is that if people with diabetes check their blood sugar levels at home, they can often prevent severe low blood sugar reactions, and there's also a shot called "glucagon" that people can have at home and that a family member could give them to just wake them up. The final thing about low blood sugar reactions is that everybody with diabetes on insulin should have a medical alert that they wear on their body somewhere so that if some bad reaction happens and you're out on the street, people will know why you're having that reaction. So, there are a whole host of things that can happen with diabetes, but the vast majority can be prevented if people know how to prepare for them and then what to do, and finally if they have access to health care when there's an early warning that something's going on.
