When your doctor or other health professional tells you you have a "high sugar count," it means you have been diagnosed with a high blood-glucose level. According to Harvard Medical School's Edward S. Horton, M.D., normal fasting blood glucose, meaning your levels measured when you've not yet eaten, ranges from 70 to 100 mg per deciliter of blood, though a nondiabetic's glucose can typically go as high as 140 after eating. If your fasting blood glucose is consistently higher than the normal range, you may be diabetic.
Types
There are two basic forms of diabetes: type 1 and type 2. Type 1 diabetes is normally acquired in childhood or adolescence and is typically treated with insulin shots. Type 2, or adult-onset, diabetes can sometimes be treated by simply making dietary changes and exercising more often. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes cause high blood sugar levels.
Causes
The National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse advises that if you are diabetic, you will experience hyperglycemia if you forget to take your medication, are physically less active than normal or eat more than you normally would. Diabetics are daily subjected to the need to balance caloric intake with medication and physical activity, and a change in any of these areas can result in abnormally high blood sugar levels.
Symptoms
Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism Christopher Sautek advises that if your blood sugar goes above 200, you may experience symptoms of hyperglycemia. A classic symptom of high blood sugar is extreme thirst, which sometimes results in the diabetic drinking gallons of water in a day. Of course, because of this increase in water consumption, the diabetic will subsequently experience a second classic symptom: increased urination. A third common symptom of hyperglycemia is fatigue.
Considerations
Although hyperglycemia is normally a matter of balancing food, activity and medicine, other variables can sometimes enter the mix and destroy your finely tuned diabetic routine. For example, starting a new job or preparing for an important exam can cause high stress levels that may secondarily cause high blood sugar. Suffering through a cold or flu can also raise glucose levels, even if you continue going to work or school or in other ways maintain a normal activity level.
Complications
The complications of diabetes can be delayed by keeping blood sugars under control, or keeping them within the normal range as often as possible. Most diabetic complications are a natural consequence of high blood sugar. MayoClinic.com reports that your risk of having a stroke is doubled within the first five years of being diagnosed with adult-onset diabetes. Other diabetic complications associated with high glucose levels are atherosclerosis, or narrowing of the arteries; retinopathy, a vascular eye condition that causes blindness; and neuropathy, or nerve degeneration.
References
- ABC News/Health: What Is the Normal Range for Blood Sugar Levels, and What Blood Sugar Level Constitutes a True Emergency?
- National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse: When Your Blood Glucose Is Too High or Too Low
- ABC News/Health: What Are the Symptoms of High Blood Sugar That Might Indicate I Have Diabetes?
- MayoClinic.com: Type 2 Diabetes
