Diabetes Symptoms and Blood Glucose Management

Hyperglycemia is when your sugar levels are too high. This can cause you to feel thirsty and have to urinate more frequently.

High blood sugar levels become a problem when sugars in the blood begin to damage or 'stick' to small arteries in the body. This can damage eye sight, kidneys and nerves in the feet and hands.

Testing A1C levels is one way to see how your blood glucose levels are doing over a longer period of time (average over 3 months). You are best controlled when you have a reading of 7% or less.

Patients do not really need to worry about A1C levels, rather should be focused more on their blood glucose reading each day.

Hypoglycemia is when blood sugar levels are too low (fasting glucose test below 4 mmol/L). Having low blood sugar levels can cause patients to feel agitated, shaky, sweaty and have heart palpatations.