Type 2 Diabetes? Know Your Numbers!

Diabetes is a symptom of a body out of balance, and that includes many systems in our bodies. Today, I'm going to talk about our vascular system, our nervous system, and our cardiovascular system.

Poorly controlled diabetes has complications. For the small vessels, the small arteries, we look at the eye and the retina. When the arteries are damaged, the blood supply is cut off to the retina and we experienced blindness.

The arteries that serve the kidneys will also create a problem where you'll end up with end stage renal failure and dialysis for our nervous system. It's going to be about the nerves and vessels in our feet and lower limbs. When they don't get enough blood supply, there's going to be tingling and pins and needles, and some numbness and eventually amputation. And for the larger vessels, now we're talking about peripheral artery disease, stroke, and heart attack.

Now, we can avoid these complications by managing or even reversing our type two diabetes. And how do we do that? We do that with lifestyle change.

So how do we know that the changes that we're making are making a difference? Well, we have different measures that we can use.

One of them is Hemoglobin A1C. Now, what is that? Well, when we have high blood sugar, we have a lot of sugar in our bloodstream and sugar is sticky, and it sticks to red blood cells. A red blood cell lives for about 120 days. So when we measure the blood, we're seeing generally what your blood sugar has been over the past few months, which is better than just a "one-point" like fasting blood sugar. Like, what is it right now - today?

If your hemoglobin A1C is 5.5% or lower, you're normal. If you're are between 5.6 and 6.4, you're in the pre-diabetic stage. If your hemoglobin A1C is 6.5% or higher, now you're in type two diabetes. And as those numbers go up, we start to have some damage.

If we take our hemoglobin A1C and we see that they're coming down, that's great news, whatever you're doing, keep doing it. If your hemoglobin A1C is staying the same and going up now, you have to ask yourself, are you willing to make the changes that need to be made to save your body? Or are you willing to live with the consequences?

I am just finishing up with my free 30 day guide on managing or reversing type two diabetes. If you are interested in getting a copy, please direct message me and I will make sure that you get a copy.

Thank you so much for listening.

Dr. Elaine.

This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace the medical advice of your doctor or healthcare provider. Please consult your healthcare provider for advice about a specific medical condition.