Unusual Symptoms

So last night I had a dream that I was standing on the stage performing what appeared to be a comedy routine to a packed house.  Except, even though the presentation was in the style of a comedian it really wasn't.  It went something like this....

Have you ever had some "unusual symptoms"?  Let me share what I mean.

Have you ever woken up, ate two eggs and a 2 pieces of toast, decided in 20 minutes you needed a bagel because you were still hungry, grabbed a cookie on your way to work because you were still hungry and continued to snack all day only to come home and eat an entire pizza because you were starving?  That type of uncontrollable hunger... Might be a sign you have Diabetes

Have you ever spent an entire day drinking anything you can get your hands on? One of those days where you feel like you are pretending to be Cosmo Cramer because not only are "these pretzels making me thirsty" so is everything else you are eating.  You drink water, iced tea, juice, pop, milk, beer, wine, only to think you are still thirsty...that uncontrollable thirst MIGHT BE A SIGN YOU HAVE DIABETES.

Now imagine you are travelling on a long distance trip and you have to stop at every rest stop along the way. You get to your destination and you spend the entire night getting up once an hour to run to the restroom.  You either drank way too many beers or that frequent urination MIGHT BE A SIGN YOU HAVE DIABETES.

Or it could be that you haven't changed a thing.  You haven't changed your diet and you are not exercising and in just one month the "Miracle you have been praying for " has been granted to you.  You have lost 10 pounds!  Or maybe its the opposite, you haven't changed a thing and at the end of the months you jeans don't fit anymore. Ugh.  These unexpected and unplanned weight changes MIGHT BE A SIGN YOU HAVE DIABETES.

Then today, you had a great night's sleep, but you keep drifting off to sleep while at your computer throughout the day.  It is a perfect day at work but by the time you get home you are so irritable you yell at everyone that comes in contact with you and you can barely keep your eyes open.  That extreme fatigue and irritability MIGHT BE A SIGN YOU HAVE DIABETES.

You get even more annoyed because you must have gotten something in your eye.  Your try to flush it out but your vision keeps getting blurrier and it isn't going away. That too, MIGHT BE A SIGN YOU HAVE DIABETES.

And you have to run to the store for more band-aids, clumsy you cut yourself while trying to separate frozen steaks but that cut just won't seem to heal.  Neither will the blister you got from those new shoes.  You go through more bandaids than CVS.  Well guess what.. if your cuts are slow to heal, it MIGHT BE A SIGN YOU HAVE DIABETES.

Unfortunately, many people don't have any of these signs or symptoms either.   If you have any of the symptoms please see your doctor.  The sooner you get treatment the better chances you have for avoiding long term complications.

I'm not sure why I dreamed I was talking to a crowd the same way a stand-up comedian would.  Diabetes is definitely not a laughing matter. It is a serious disease with serious complications.  By 2050, it is estimated that 1 in 3 people in the US will have diabetes.  It serves us all to learn more about this disease, how to prevent it, and how to manage it.