The grim question of complications

I dont think it will be 10 years as NHS advice really to all diabetics for looking after themselves needs to be updated.

In those circumstances it could be decades.

Some of complications are dependent upon patients taking care of themselves. That may be difficult.. it depends whether patients go through denial, which many do. Whether patients are given correct 15 checks by GPs and hospurals annually. What info they use... do they use meters? Do they know effects of food, do they follow NHS eatwell plate?

So many ifs and buts to say that complications will get less in a decade.

The best advice is given to new members via this website.. but gor the qty of diabetics in this country alone and tge qty of members here, then tbh I dont hold out much hope for a decade..

Hi. If you maintain your blood sugar within a good range you shouldn't suffer any long-term complications. Just make sure you have the low-carb diet and the right tablets and insulin if needed.

It is high blood sugars that cause complications. Some newly diagnosed have had high blood sugars a long time before diagnosis. Others are caught early. The only way you can help yourself is to take care of your health, eat low carb, reduce and control your blood sugar levels at as near as you can to non-diabetic levels. As a PS it isn't just the average HbA1c levels that matter - it is swings that are important. Spiking high after meals then returning to base until the next meal won't always show on the Hba1c. This is why testing at home is important - so you can discover which foods make you spike too high.

As a diabetic we should be having annual retinal eye screening and annual foot checks, plus regular blood tests for glucose, cholesterol, liver and kidney functions and anything else they throw in. These all help us to stay healthy.

as a type 1 for 44 years I will just add that low blood sugars over time can cause problems too

also -- worrying about complications are a part of normal daily thinking with D ( how to avoid them )

you would do well to do your best to keep BG's in range as often as possible.

SugarDaddy91 said:

Hello, everyone. Still in the shock phase of newly discovered diabetes and I am doing research on my future. I am wondering if anyone here has heard anything about completely avoiding complications? Is it possible? I see a lot of people stating it can be put off for decades etc, but noone really answers the question whether or not it can be completely avoided. My educator told me that complications will be a thing of the past over the next 10 years and that some of the numbers we have at current, which form the basis of our research grew up in a different time without proper measurements and control. What do you guys think?

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I can only tell you after 5 years, I don't have any complications.

I include manic testing, worrying excessively about spikes, BG, what I eat next as a complication as well.
It's just swapping one complication of diabetes limiting your life, to another, for me.

And I can't see it changing in the foreseeable future.

So, I live normally, I eat a fairly relaxed diet, I work with my HCP's, but I put in a lot of work to reverse my diabetes initially.
I have totally normal BG levels, but then again, there are many definitions of normal.

There are never any guarantees about complications. The only certain thing is that if you do your best to keep within reasonable range most of the time, you'll massively improve your chances.

Don't sweat it too much if you're out of range now and then - happens to all of us.

It's the bigger, long term picture which counts. You're not going to be suddenly blind or losing limbs if you're out of range every now or then provided you put some effort into minimising that.

Complications don't happen overnight. They're most likely to occur when people go into denial, pretend they're not T (I'm aware from your earlier posts you're still a bit uncertain, pending tests, about which type you are!), and run around in the twenties as if they weren't T at all.

If I was you, I'd push complications to the back of my mind, because you're still really early doors with this, and focus on the day to day things which you'll need to learn to cope with the reality of it.

Do that, and complications will become something which your docs will pick up on and treat if they happen, and there's some pretty **** cunning things they can do nowadays.

One of the things which motivated me a lot to pay attention shortly after dx was reading an article about a girl who got some serious eye problems five years after dx, because she didn't take it seriously, running in the twenties a lot. I decided I would pay attention because I didn't want to go blind. Thirty years in, I'll say that again, in case you didn't notice the first time, thirty years in, my eyes are fine. Not through any restricted fad diets, just through making careful decisions about how much insulin to take.

Like I say, there are no guarantees in any of this, but the chances of any bad complications happening to you are pretty minimal provided you pay a bit of attention to it.

PS: the girl in the article I mentioned listened to her doctor, paid more attention, and turned round the eye problems. Result!

People can have high blood sugars for a long time before they are diagnosed. Some people make the mistake of thinking that taking pills will sort out diabetes, but it usually only has a limited effect. The best course of action to reduce blood sugar is to eat a low carb diet. Many people on here eat a Low Carb High Fat diet to effectively manage their blood sugars. Intermittent fasting is another way to help reduce blood sugars and help regenerate the body through the process of autophagy.

You do get people who are in denial about high blood sugars. My diabetes nurse told me that many of her patients still add sugar to their tea and eat a lot of high carb junk food. Small surprise that such people require more and more medication and may suffer from diabetic complications such as eye problems or nerve damage. In the UK there are about 20 operations a day for amputations as a result of diabetic complications from neuropathy caused by prolonged high blood sugar which causes nerve damage and slow healing. Diabetes can result in about ten years less life expectancy if you don't get it under control. However, if you do get it under control then you should avoid serious complications and have a normal life expectancy.

The important thing is to get a glucose meter and use it to check before and two hours after eating to see which foods spike your blood sugar. If they do raise blood sugars a lot, then stop eating them.

I've been T1 since 1972 had apart from a few years of eye laser to both eyes and then eye injections haven't had any complications Haven't had any eye treatment for about 2 years now.
I eat and drink moreorless what I like and just inject around that.
Motto.....DONT WORRY!

It can also depend on how long you are an uncontrolled diabetic prior to diagnosis as in my case I already had complications when diagnosed.

I think with T1's the fear can be challenging to cope with initially...

Its normal though to feel that fear.. totally normal.
30+ years ago I was told I would die early, I would get complications, I would get a medal if I got to 25 years with it and I got a peep in to a ward as well that had two amputees in it. They scared the hell out of me. We never had internet our books on it either. My dad used to cut out articles in newspapers for me.

Well, none of it has come true for me... not even a medal at 25 years. We have to buy our own at 50 years survival with it!

However, scaring the heck out of me, I think it helped me in some ways.

I've never worn high heels, always worn something on my feet.

Also, T1 diabetics pre insulin were fed lettuce and whisky -even children... things have changed!!

Looking after yourself is important, not to worry consistently is important too. You still have to live and be happy.

I've not been a perfect angel either... and I've also struggled with crazy dawn phenomenen. Not been easy but fear of complications is natural. It happens with all critical illnesses.

Its good that you are thinking of the complications. Personally, I think being so strictly told when diagnosed helped me.

I always wear footwear too ..............always
@donnellysdogs words are wise and true

SugarDaddy91 said:

My educator told me that complications will be a thing of the past over the next 10 years

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That seems like a very optimistic statement to make.

However the condition diabetic retinopathy was once was the leading cause of blindness in adults of working age, this is no longer the case despite an increase in the number of people who have diabetes (all praise for the diabetic eye screening service) so there is hope, but I agree with others that keeping your bg under control gives you the best chance of avoiding complications.

Try not to stress too much about something that may never be @SugarDaddy91

That 10 year figure must assume that in the next 10 years there will be treatment that effectively reverses diabetes.

Plus treatment that reverses any existing damage.

As far as I know the ages of the majority of diabetics (at least T2) can range from the 80s and 90s to the 40s and 50s. Some may have at least another 40 years of active life. So there can be no end of life studies which confirm the lack of diabetes complications for the majority of T2s.

Any new treatment or medication will also not have any evidence of the long term effects which are (strangely) not indicated by the results of the studies used to gain approval.

So 10 years is just finger waving for "we hope".

JohnEGreen said:

It can also depend on how long you are an uncontrolled diabetic prior to diagnosis as in my case I already had complications when diagnosed.

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Yes, fair point, John. I suppose that's one of the differences between T1 and T2. With me, as a T1, although it's correctly described as a chronic condition, in the sense that it'll be with me for life (barring some miracle cure - there's probably some undiscovered compound in a rare orchid in the Amazon!), the onset was acute: I was fine, then I wasn't, the litres of water, peeing, weight loss and tiredness were good clues.

So, I don't think I spent more than a few weeks totally out of range. I know very little about T2, but the little I've picked up from this site suggests it's a different ball game - instead of a full on halt of insulin production in T1, in T2 insulin is still being produced but either at lower levels and/or its effect is compromised, so T2s can get along for a few years too high without necessarily being aware of it, hence bigger chance of complications.

I'm curious, though, I've been T1 too long to remember how often I had regular gp check ups before dx, so is an aspect of this maybe that either people don't go along for a yearly check up or that if they do, gps don't test glucose?

Scott-C said:

I'm curious, though, I've been T1 too long to remember how often I had regular gp check ups before dx, so is an aspect of this maybe that either people don't go along for a yearly check up or that if they do, gps don't test glucose?

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Currently (at least in England) everyone aged 40 or over is invited to their surgery for a health check which includes an HbA1c. Of course, not everyone attends. My son-in-law had to be dragged. I think this may well be one reason why we are seeing many more pre-diabetics on the forum. Until a couple of years ago, the age for inviting people in was 60. That was how I was diagnosed with no symptoms at all.

Bluetit1802 said:

Currently (at least in England) everyone aged 40 or over is invited to their surgery for a health check which includes an HbA1c. Of course, not everyone attends. My son-in-law had to be dragged. I think this may well be one reason why we are seeing many more pre-diabetics on the forum. Until a couple of years ago, the age for inviting people in was 60. That was how I was diagnosed with no symptoms at all.

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Cheers, @Bluetit1802 . I have to say even though I attend hospital reviews religiously, I'm a bit more lax about gp reviews!

Scott-C said:

Cheers, @Bluetit1802 . I have to say even though I attend hospital reviews religiously, I'm a bit more lax about gp reviews!

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I should have qualified my statement that everyone aged 40 or over by saying everyone not already diagnosed with a chronic problem that already requires regular checks. In other words, healthy individuals.

I think this is a very interesting topic. It might be possible that a strictly controlled diabetic might have better long term outcomes than an average non-diabetic, with the proviso that a lot of damage wasn't caused before diagnosis.

Obviously this is just speculation, but as "we" have to look after ourselves and usually get checked more often than non-diabetics, we can find out issues potentially sooner.

For example I've got normal markers and train a minimum of 6 days a week; I would assume that on average I might have less risks than a sedentary smoker? I think you need a bit of luck as well, as a bus could come along, MS etc.