Diabetic retinopathy occurs when too much sugar in the blood leads to blockages in the tiny blood vessels that nourish the retina, the light-sensitive tissue in the back of the eye. I finally went to a retina specialist, and sure enough, by that time I had fairly advanced retinopathy. She said, “Look at those stars-there’s the Big Dipper!” I looked up and all I saw was black sky. Then, one autumn evening about a year later, I was having dinner outdoors with a friend. I’ve always been very squeamish about my eyes, so I put that off and retreated into my familiar world of denial. After a routine dilated eye exam, I was told I had the beginnings of diabetic retinopathy, and was advised to see a retina specialist as soon as possible. The really worrisome complications of diabetes started about six years ago. I rationalized that I could easily live with a little numbness in my feet. So, the neuropathy never really bothered me. I’m fortunate that I’ve never had that I've just experienced numbness and cold feet due to diabetes-related circulation problems. Many experience sharp, stabbing pains in their feet. More than half of all people with diabetes will develop some type of neuropathy. Over time, this gradually worsened and became numbness in portions of my feet, a condition known as peripheral neuropathy, which results from damage to the nerves located outside of the brain and spinal cord. The first diabetes symptom I felt, which began around 2010, was a mild tingling, or “pins and needles” feeling in my feet. As a result of my poor diabetes management, I ended up having all three of those complications. The three most common complications of diabetes involve damage to the nerves (neuropathy), the eyes (retinopathy), and the kidneys (nephropathy).

That’s because excessive sugar in your blood damages blood vessels and nerves throughout your body. But once the complications of diabetes start to take hold-and eventually, they will-they can affect virtually every area of your health. You can be without symptoms for years and feel completely fine. I figured if I was eating so badly anyway, what was the point?īut as I’ve come to learn (and you’ll read below), diabetes can be an insidious disease. Even worse than my diet was the fact that I didn’t take my medications regularly. In hindsight, I guess I was trying to prove to myself that diabetes was not going to change anything. I had been blessed with good health for most of my life. Up until I had the ministroke in November 2021, my diabetes was, as doctors say, completely “uncontrolled.” I have had a lifelong love affair with sugar, and I ate as much ice cream, candy, and carbohydrates as I wanted, despite knowing that I was diabetic and how that behavior would affect my blood glucose levels.Īfter all, I felt fine. Diabetes patients and their physicians have to find the right balance of medication, diet, and exercise to maintain good blood sugar levels without letting them get too high or too low, which can be just as dangerous. Those elevated levels can lead to a number of serious health issues if they’re not managed properly-often a difficult task for those with the condition. In 2006, when I was in my 40s, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a chronic disorder in which my body is unable to properly use insulin, resulting in high blood glucose levels. But the effect of that ministroke was life-changing. My friends decided that dinner was over, and they drove me to the hospital.įortunately, the symptoms lasted only about an hour, and there was no permanent damage, according to the emergency department doctors. I knew what I wanted to say to my friends, but I couldn’t get the right words out. In the middle of dinner, I started saying and doing things that made no sense. I was out celebrating with friends when I had (what I later found out was) a transient ischemic attack (TIA), a temporary blockage of blood flow to part of the brain, also known as a ministroke. On the day after my 60th birthday, I had a medical emergency that may have saved my life.

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