Diabetes

Diabetes can affect your entire body, impacting everything from your heart and kidneys to your eyes and nerves. Elahe Toulouie MD Inc. offers diabetes screening at offices in La Mesa, El Cajon, and San Diego, California, to identify the condition in its early stages. Dr. Toulouie and her team also offer comprehensive preventive services and treatment. Call your nearest office today to arrange a screening test or schedule a consultation via the online booking form.

What is diabetes?

Diabetes is a common condition that can have life-threatening complications. It develops when your body can’t regulate the sugar levels in your blood. You need blood sugar for fast access to energy, but too much or too little is harmful.

Your pancreas (an organ in your abdomen) produces insulin, a hormone that manages blood sugar. If you don’t have enough insulin, you could develop diabetes.

Some people have type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disorder where your immune system mistakenly destroys the pancreatic cells producing insulin. This condition develops in younger people and is unpreventable.

Type 2 diabetes is more common and largely preventable. Unhealthy lifestyle habits and excess body weight affects insulin production, so you might not make enough. Your body can also become resistant to the insulin you produce. Type 2 diabetes most often affects people in middle age and older.

How does diabetes affect me?

Diabetes has widespread effects on your body because high blood sugar levels damage your nerves and blood vessels. This damage can cause poor circulation and nerve dysfunction, resulting in problems like:

• Diabetic peripheral neuropathy
• Heart disease
• Diabetic retinopathy
• Diabetic nephropathy
• Diabetic ulcers

These conditions cause kidney failure, sight loss, pain, and open, non-healing sores that could lead to infection and require limb amputation.

You can quickly and easily check for diabetes with a blood test at Elahe Toulouie MD Inc.

What treatment do I need for diabetes?

Treating type 1 diabetes requires regular blood sugar level tests and self-administering insulin injections or managing an insulin pump. If you keep your blood sugar levels stable, you can lead a long, healthy life, but you always have to take insulin.

Type 2 diabetes treatment typically includes lifestyle changes like:

• Losing weight
• Exercising regularly
• Quitting smoking
• Improved nutrition
• Reducing carbohydrates and unhealthy fats

Depending on your condition’s severity, you might need to take medications to regulate your blood sugar levels. Monitoring your blood sugar and visiting Elahe Toulouie MD Inc. for regular health reviews is vital to ensure your treatment works.

If you tackle type 2 diabetes in its early stages (prediabetes) before symptoms develop, you can fully reverse the condition. As the disease progresses, the damage becomes irreversible. However, you can improve your health significantly and prevent complications by managing your blood sugar properly.

Call Elahe Toulouie MD Inc. for expert treatment, or arrange a diabetes screening test online today.