A beginner's guide to help you safely control diabetes

If you've been diagnosed with diabetes, your first step is to control your blood sugar by making healthy lifestyle choices. In fact, even if you haven't been formally diagnosed, healthy choices can help reduce your risk of being diagnosed with diabetes-related health problems. Read on for some basic diabetes information and safety tips you should know.

Think about what happens when you spill honey; it gets on your fingers, sticks to everything you touch and generally gums up your entire kitchen counter. Now imagine a honey spill taking place inside your bloodstream — which is essentially what high blood sugar is. What happens? Cells, proteins and fats get stickier, slowing circulation, holding back tissue repair and encouraging material to adhere to your artery walls and cause clots.In short, excess blood sugar gums up your body.

• You don't leave honey on your countertop. Likewise, you should clean up blood sugar as quickly and thoroughly as possible because the "stickiness" gets worse. Doing so can make you feel better right off the bat.

Even if you have no symptoms of diabetes, taking action will start to reduce your risk of such diabetes-related problems as these:

• Damage to delicate blood vessels at the back of the eye (the retina), which can lead to vision problems
• Ruined capillaries in the kidneys that filter waste from your body via the bloodstream
• Impaired nerve function due to less nourishment from damaged blood vessels
• Damage to artery walls that makes them more likely to snag blood clots and plaque that can cause heart attack, stroke and high blood pressure

These complications wreak all kinds of havoc, including impaired healing, infections, lack of sensation that can lead to injury (especially in the feet), loss of vision, swollen ankles, fatigue, sexual dysfunction — the list can be long. Fortunately, there are lots of things you can do to clean up the excess blood sugar and halt this parade of problems.

If you know that you have diabetes and feel something is not right, get help right away.

• Call for an ambulance or emergency services immediately if you become very sleepy or confused. That's a sign that your blood sugar may have dropped too low and you need immediate medical attention.
• Or if you're sleepy, confused, breathing very fast or your breath smells fruity. This signals diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening condition.
• Call your doctor right away if your blood sugar is 300 mg/dL or higher and if you've had diarrhea or have been vomiting for more than six hours.

Consider this guide and make healthy choices to reduce your risk for diabetes and other diabetes-related problems.