What's The Relationship Between Dizziness And Diabetes?

Patients with diabetes, a disease in which patients have high levels of glucose in their blood, exhibit several different symptoms, including polydipsia (excessive thirst), polyuria (excessive urination), polyphagia (excessive hunger), fatigue, and dizziness.

Dizziness is a sensation in which a person feels light-headed, and is usually accompanied by an unexpected feeling of heat. This can occur at any time without any warning, sometimes at inconvenient times which can be quite embarrassing as it can stop you from carrying out everyday tasks. Some people may feel that the room is spinning or may feel faint.

Anyone with diabetes can become dizzy. Therefore, if you have diabetes, you should let people around you know so they are not alarmed and can help when you are hit with a bout of dizziness. In fact, if you consistently feel light-headed, it could actually be the first signal that there may be something wrong with your blood glucose levels. If this persists, you should contact a doctor to test your blood glucose levels. You should be particularly attentive to these signals if you have risk factors that predispose you to developing diabetes including a family history of diabetes, obesity and a lack of physical activity.

Diabetes and dizziness

Everyone feels dizzy at one point or another and usually, people recover in no time. However, the serious impact of dizziness comes in when the dizziness is caused by an underlying health issue, such as diabetes. Your body tries to warn you that something is wrong with it when there is an uncontrolled disease.

The first thing a doctor will do when you tell them that you are having dizzy spells is to check your blood sugar. You can even do it using an at-home test if someone in your household has a glucose monitor. You blood glucose can affect dizziness in one of two ways: hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia.

Hypoglycemia and dizziness

Hypoglycemia refers to a condition in which patients have low blood glucose levels. This is defined as when your glucose levels dip below the concentration of 70 mg/dL. However, if you are used to having higher blood glucose levels then you can actually feeling hypoglycemic at a concentration that is higher than 70 mg/dL. So how do you know if you have hypoglycemia?

The symptoms of hypoglycemia are:

• Feeling shaky
• Feeling sweaty
• Feeling hungry
• Having a headache
• Having blurry vision
• Feeling fatigued or tired
• Feeling dizzy
• Having pale skin
• Feeling confused
• Feeling unbalanced
• Being irritable
• Feeling nervous or anxious
• Feeling weak
• Having an irregular heartbeat

While some people may feel some of these symptoms, others may feel the rest. Overall, these are classic symptoms that somebody with either mild or moderate hypoglycemia would present with. In extreme cases, these are some of the symptoms you may feel:

• Can’t eat or drink
• Shaking uncontrollably or having seizures
• Fainting or being unconscious

Unfortunately, some patients with hypoglycemia can develop a very dangerous condition called hypoglycemia unawareness in which the patients don’t feel any symptoms at all.

Treatment of hypoglycemia

The best way to treat hypoglycemia is to first check your blood glucose levels using a glucose monitor. If your blood glucose levels are low then you should consume a food or a drink that has approximately 15 grams of carbohydrates. This can include a juice or soda, a small amount or sugar or honey, or other carbohydrate heavy things. Then, check your blood glucose levels again in about a quarter of an hour. If your glucose levels have not risen then consume another snack.

Hyperglycemia and dizziness

In some instances, having hyperglycemia (high blood sugar levels) can cause by dizziness. This is because high blood sugar levels lead to polyuria, which causes dehydration. This occurs as your body tried to remove the extra glucose by excreting it in the form of urine. When you have less water in your body, then that cause dizziness and light headedness.

Other causes of dizziness

Besides diabetes, there are several reasons why anyone person can feel dizziness. Some of these reasons include:

• The room is too hot
• You are overdressed (and therefore feeling hot)
• You are dehydrated
• You use certain medications, such as those that treat ear infections or a migraine, that can cause dizziness
• Extreme stress
• Standing up too suddenly after you have been sitting for a while (this is usually due to postural hypertension – high blood pressure – which suddenly drops when you stand up quickly). This occurs frequently in the elderly.

When dizziness is caused by things that are temporary, such as those noted above, there are some of the things you can do to to get over it:

• Have a cold glass of water
• Step out and have a bit of fresh air
• Rest for a bit