November 8

The picture is the bottle of Ketostix.

These are urine test strips that are very similar to pH test strips people use in chemistry or biology class in high school, pools and even fish tanks. I haven’t used these things in many years, but now that I’m on the pump, I need to be watching what is called ketones. 

Ketones are the chemical products of fat when you use fat as energy in the body. As a T1D, if my blood sugar goes too high and there is not enough insulin given, my body will have to use fat to run my organs and muscles. Since there is no insulin, I can’t use the sugar in my blood and my body resorts to fat. 

Ketones are acidic in the body! For example, the ketone that I release in my breath (the fruity smell in undiagnosed T1s) is acetone. Acetone is nail polish remover!

There are many ketones, but acetone is one that is released in high concentrations when fat is used as an energy source. 

Having acidic blood in the body is highly detrimental. There are complications due to having high blood sugars and ketones for long periods of time. 

The main complications for uncontrolled diabetes (and having ketones) are:

Neuropathy- this is a disease of the nerves. It’s seen more commonly in the feet. But can happen anywhere there are nerves. Symptoms of neuropathy are tingling, decreased ability to feel pain, heat and cold, pain, and can change the shape of your feet even! This means that if someone has neuropathy in the feet, they could step on a tack and never feel it. Which can easily lead to infection and infection turns into amputation. Yeah, they start cutting off toes and parts of the foot and move up the leg depending on how uncontrolled blood sugars are and how bad infection is. This is why I check my feet all the time and Jeff even massages my feet so we can both check.

Nephropathy- Kidney Disease. Kidneys are just as important as your brain and your heart. No kidney, means no more filtration of the yucky stuff in the blood. This is bad! If the kidneys fail, you need to go on dialysis and try to get a kidney transplant. 

High Blood Pressure- diabetics are more at risk since we can have excess sugar in the blood, which causes water shifts in the blood vessels. 

Gastroparesis- this means your stomach quit working. There is no longer any digestion in your stomach. People with gastroparesis have to be tube fed. In the worst cases, no more eating food, it’s all through a formula you mix and put into a bag that will put the nutrients you need into your body. If the gastroparesis isn’t severe, you may just need to change the diet and insulin therapy to match how slowly you digest food. 

DKA (Diabetic KetoAcidosis)- this is when you have a build up of ketones due to not having enough insulin. This is deadly and can lead to coma and then death. Symptoms are generally the same as when you are diagnosed, because you are in DKA when diagnosed with T1D. You feel like you are dying. 

There are more, but I just hit the main complications.