Best Sources for Diabetes Info

[athomemom56]

I know there are numerous sources both written and videos on the topic of diabetes available for nurses. I learn best using visuals, but also when Reasons and Rationales are given. If I know the reason, then I understand better. A lot of times I find information that tells me diabetes can cause complications involving the kidneys....but I need to know how and why...If any of you know good sites and especially good videos please let me know. Not only for diabetes, but any condition. This is the best way for me to learn. Following is some info I got from the internet...it tells me the how and why. Here goes:

[h=3]How does diabetes cause kidney disease?[/h] When our bodies digest the protein we eat, the process creates waste products. In the kidneys, millions of tiny blood vessels (capillaries) with even tinier holes in them act as filters. As blood flows through the blood vessels, small molecules such as waste products squeeze through the holes. These waste products become part of the urine. Useful substances, such as protein and red blood cells, are too big to pass through the holes in the filter and stay in the blood.

Diabetes can damage this system. High levels of blood sugar make the kidneys filter too much blood. All this extra work is hard on the filters. After many years, they start to leak and useful protein is lost in the urine. Having small amounts of protein in the urine is called microalbuminuria.

The kidneys work hard to make up for the failing capillaries so kidney disease produces no symptoms until almost all function is gone. Also, the symptoms of kidney disease are not specific......

Here's another complication of diabetes....with the how's and whys....

Gastroparesis

• Gastroparesis is a type of neuropathy (nerve damage) in which food is delayed from leaving the stomach.
  
• This nerve damage can be caused by long periods of high blood sugar.
  
• Delayed digestion makes the management of diabetes more difficult.
  
• It can be treated with insulin management, drugs, diet, or in severe cases, a feeding tube.
  

Gastroparesis is a disorder affecting people with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes in which the stomach takes too long to empty its contents (delayed gastric emptying). The vagus nerve controls the movement of food through the digestive tract. If the vagus nerve is damaged or stops working, the muscles of the stomach and intestines do not work normally, and the movement of food is slowed or stopped.

Just as with other types of neuropathy, diabetes can damage the vagus nerve if blood glucose levels remain high over a long period of time. High blood glucose causes chemical changes in nerves and damages the blood vessels that carry oxygen and nutrients to the nerves.

Sorry to be so long, and hope you get what I mean...

Barbra Ann

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

if you google or do a search on your school's subscribed research sites you will get your info, but I can tell you one thing: The "bottom Line" for diabetics is that the disease makes the blood vessels weak and leaky. Sometimes the weak spots get aneurysms. Sugar in the blood makes it syrupy, so now you have leaky vessels with sludge. This makes the heart work harder to keep up the same work routine (rate and pressure). Organs begin to fail due to lack of oxygen, or other circulatory issues. Check your patient's albumin level - you may see that as it goes down (causing weak vessel walls) other problems go up. That is the down and dirty