What infections am I prone to if I have diabetes?

What infections am I prone to if I have diabetes?

Anne Peters, MD, FACP, CDE (Professor and Director of Clinical Diabetes Programs, USC Keck School of Medicine) gives expert video advice on: Does taking additional insulin correct a high blood sugar level?; Why is my blood pressure important if I have diabetes?; What are the most common causes of death for people with diabetes? and more...

In my experience people with diabetes whose blood sugars are controlled don't tend to get infections at any higher rate then anyone else, but if blood sugar levels are high even a little bit, there are a variety of different kinds of infections that can occur. Common infections I see, especially in women, are urinary tract infections and yeast infections. I can almost tell a young woman's blood sugar levels by how often they're having yeast infections. I think yeast like that sugary stuff that grows down there when blood sugar levels are high. The same thing goes for other kinds of fungus; foot fungus (the thickening of the nails) is really common in people with diabetes. I think fungus likes sugar. In people whose blood sugar levels are high there are important infections that they can get, for instance, sometimes what seems like a little tiny infection of the skin can end up going down to the bone, and become what we call osteomyelitis, or an infection of the bone. People with diabetes can get other infections, of say their sinuses or their ears; sort of rare uncommon infections. The vast majority of those people have very poorly controlled diabetes. In most cases good control of diabetes helps control the effect of the high risks of infection.