Diabetes is a chronic disease that has reached epidemic proportions and that appears when the pancreas does not produce sufficient insulin, or the body is not able to use it effectively.We approach this ailment of the hand of three different ages that tell us how they live with this pathology: José Olivera (70), Carmen Naranjo (52) and Ángel Astiazarán (15).
Living diabetes: The symptoms can range from the increase in urinary frequency, thirst, hunger and an inexplicable weight loss, to the numbness of the extremities, foot pain, fatigue and blurred vision, through recurrent infectionsor serious and/or loss of consciousness or nausea and intense vomiting or coma state.
José Olivera: "I was not afraid"
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José Olivera, builder, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes twelve years ago: “I noticed that something happened to me because I never drink water and started drinking water without stopI couldn't continue like this.I approached the La Paz hospital and they tested the sugar and had almost 600 milligrams, which is a barbarity. ”
"I am very positive and always optimistic, and thanks to the sport I have practiced, always risk sports (paragliding, diving, caleology ..), I don't scare me anything, so the news did not cause me fear."
He also ensures that the disease has not changed his life even though they had to amputate a leg.Less than a year ago they put an orthopedic leg that has not given him a major problem.
He assures that he got used to her in the minute one and that when they were placed it had not walking eight months.He even dares to drive because the car is automatic.
“I have not had any pain, nor the feeling of the so -called ghost nerves.I have never had to take pills, like many people who have a very bad time, because they feel they still have a leg, support and fall, and it has not happened to me, ”he says.
This diabetes, he says, came for age.It is true that he likes candy a lot, but doctors told him that he had nothing to do with it: "It must have been because of age, stress ...", he explains.
In the day to day, not to be able to eat sweet, because he loves cakes.On the other hand he has never smoked or drunk alcohol.
José tells that when his leg was cut it was not a traumatic moment.Due to the lack of blood irrigation first, a wound appeared in the lower part of the finger and told him that it was necessary to cut it, because it could be passed to the other, which also cut it after a while, and so on up to four amputated phalanges.
"I did nothing but go to the hospital, it was almost like my hotel: the bed was like my office full of papers, and drawings."The doctor replied that in three days, and asked to be able to see the amputation… ”
Insulina (20 units) is currently clicking at night, and although it has not been diving a year, his favorite sport is willing to resume it "because it can be done perfectly without a leg."
Carmen Naranjo: "The world fell on me"
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Carmen Naranjo is a journalist.18 years ago, when I was 34, he discovered that I had type 1 diabetes: “I really didn't realize.I was thinning a lot and was thirsty, but I was happy because I ate what I wanted and did not get fat, it was the first time in my life that happened to me. ”
It was his mother for a television campaign about diabetes who recognized the symptoms in his daughter.
After testing at the pharmacy, where it was "300 and peak", he went to the ambulatory "and the world falls on you, more than anything because it is a amount of information thethat you have to assimilate… ”
"Insulin occurs in the pancreas, according to the exercise you do and what you eat, but when you have diabetes to which the function is to do is you .."
“At the beginning it is complicated, and when you read the instructions and you see that you can die of an insulin overdose .. also to me in the beginnings they did not explain anything to me.Later, when I treat me with an endocrine at the Jiménez Díaz Foundation. ”
Carmen had had a gestational diabetes in her first pregnancy, which disappeared at the birth of the child.When years later he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes he was thinking of becoming pregnant again.
“It was a stick because the pregnancy had to be delayed.I spent six months with strict medical follow -up, in a special unit at the La Paz hospital in Diabetes and Pregnancy, which is very good. ”All this allowed him to have a second child.
Diabetes, at first, changes your life “especially because you have to be pending 24 hours a day, but it is a disease with which you can live perfectly and lead a normal life, but you never have to lower your guard becauseIt is dangerous to have high sugar;In the short term it is more dangerous to have it under, to have a hypoglycemia, which have given me many. ”
Hyperglycemia, high sugar, explains, harms the kidneys ..., but in the short term "if you click a lot of insulin and do not eat enough or do more exercise than you play, you can give you hypoglycemia."
"It happened to me sometimes that I have been unconscious being asleep and is very dangerous and a horrible feeling."
To administer insulin, it has a pen, in the morning, it gets the fast, also indicated for when you are going to eat, and also a slow one, which is called basal.
At noon if you eat hydrates, another quickly clicks, and at night the same in the morning.
Ángel will be: "something else I have to do"
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Angel was discovered that he had diabetes four years ago, when he had 11. It was at the end of the course and had to enter the hospital.I had not been well for a month, he began to lose weight (six kilos) "And I was very hungry and went to the bathroom, I was wrong .."
When he was hospitalized, he had 675 milligrams of blood sugar, and I didn't know what the disease was “because they had never told me about it;I spent fifteen days hospitalized. ”It cost to regulate him because he has allergy to some foods.
During those days they told him that it happened and "once I knew, I thought: something else I have to do, because since I was two years old I have allergy to fruits and nuts, and also dermatitis."
Diabetes has changed his life in the sense that he has made him more responsible, "more mature for everything."As for living diabetes, he says that he has to be aware that they do not give him hypoglycemia and "that sugar is not uploaded, but life is still the same, I do sports, swimming and paddle."
In his case he carries an insulin bomb.At first the sugar had to be measured up to ten times a day.Now with its pump (artificial pancreas) the thing has changed.It takes it connected to the body during the day and night, and the load with insulin every three days.
It also carries a sensor that continually measures its blood sugar level and sends the data to the pump, which reacts according to sugar or uploads.
"At night- explain- I have many declines and I do not wake up, there are people who do, but I do not realize and in this sense the sensor is very useful ...".
Ángel likes everything that has to do with electronics, computers, video game, video games ... and the ailment has not prevented him from following the corresponding school year.
The fact of carrying that little bomb attached to yourBody through a catheter inserted in his abdomen does not affect him, and sometimes if he goes down the street and the device is seen "I notice that there are people who turn and look at me, but it does not bother me."
Live diabetes: some tips
Daily coexistence with diabetes implies special attention to disproportionate blood sugar increases, which is known as hyperglycemia, and also to the decrease in these levels (hypoglycemia), conventionally below 70 mg/dl.
These mismatches should be avoided with the self -control of glucose and the dose of medication, the practice of physical exercise and adequate diet.
An un controlled diabetes can lead to blindness;Up to 35% of diagnosed people suffer from diabetic retinopathy and 7% diabetic macular edema.
These alterations must be prevented through periodic eye controls, with a minimum frequency once a year, because a rapid performance will ensure better results to preserve vision.
As for renal affectation, diabetes can cause diabetic nephropathy, hence the importance of controlling blood pressure to protect kidneys from greater damage, as well as cholesterol.
In addition, about 15% of people suffering from diabetes will develop feet conditions, the most common are neuropathy (loss of sensitivity) and peripheral vascular disease, highlights the Official College of Podiators of the Valencian Community.
These pathologies require precise treatment, since if they are seriously complicated by healing problems they could end in amputation.
For this reason, it is recommended to use proper footwear, especially care for feet hygiene and hydrate them daily to combat dryness and prevent fissures and infections, as well as perform daily visual explorations to rule out injuries.
