Contents:
- Medical Video: Treating Low Blood Sugar | Hypoglycemia | Nucleus Health
- Why do diabetic patients often feel headaches?
- What are the causes of headaches in diabetes?
- 1. Hyperglycemia headache
- 2. Hypoglycemia headaches
- 3. Glaucoma headaches
- 4. Neuropathic headaches
Medical Video: Treating Low Blood Sugar | Hypoglycemia | Nucleus Health
Someone who has diabetes, tend to experience headaches or dizziness often. A body that is no longer able to produce or use insulin, is thought to be the main cause of diabetics feeling dizzy or headache. Why do diabetic patients often feel headaches? What causes headaches in diabetes? Check out the following review.
Why do diabetic patients often feel headaches?
Not all diabetes patients will feel headaches. Someone newly diagnosed with diabetes is usually more likely to experience headaches. This is because they are still not used to "managing" their blood sugar levels. Headaches associated with diabetes usually occur due to changes in blood sugar levels.
Headaches in diabetes usually indicate that their blood sugar levels are too high, called hyperglycemia, or too low, which is called hypoglycemia. The more often they experience ups and downs in blood sugar levels, the greater they often experience headaches.
Headaches in diabetes that are associated with fluctuations in blood sugar levels are caused by changes in hormone levels such as epinephrine and norepinephrine, which results in narrowing of blood vessels in the brain. This narrowing is called vasoconstriction.
What are the causes of headaches in diabetes?
1. Hyperglycemia headache
Hyperglycemia is a condition when your sugar level is too high above 200 mg / dL, the symptoms themselves will not be realized until your blood sugar level is above 200 mg / dL. This condition occurs when the body does not have enough insulin or due to insulin resistance, which is the hormone released by the pancreas.
Insulin functions to spread sugar in the blood to all body cells so that it can be processed into energy. Most of these conditions are experienced by diabetic patients who cannot lead a healthy lifestyle, such as overeating, lack of exercise, or forgetting to take diabetes medications or insulin.
Headaches are often considered the initial sign of this condition and the pain can get worse because your condition is getting worse. The following are other symptoms that indicate you are experiencing hyperglycemia as reported by Health Line:
- Fatigue.
- Blurred vision.
- Excessive thirst and dehydration.
- Often want to urinate.
- Excessive hunger.
- Wounds that don't heal.
2. Hypoglycemia headaches
Hypoglycemia is a condition when your blood sugar level is low, which is below 70 mg / dL. We usually get sugar in the blood from food that is digested and absorbed. The sugar molecule enters the bloodstream, which is then channeled to cells in all body tissues.
But most of the body's cells cannot absorb sugar without the help of the insulin hormone produced by the pancreas. In this case, insulin acts as an opening door for the entry of sugar into the cell.
If the amount of insulin is too much, automatically blood sugar levels will decrease. That's why hypoglycemia is experienced by many diabetic patients because they often use insulin or drugs that trigger insulin production to reduce blood sugar levels in their blood.
Unlike hyperglycemia, the symptoms of hypoglycemia are usually sudden. Headaches are usually the initial symptoms that you will feel when your blood sugar drops, you will also experience the following symptoms:
- Tired
- Dizzy
- Pale
- Tingling lips
- Trembling
- Sweating
- Feeling hungry
- Heart palpitations
- Difficult to concentrate
- Easy to get angry
3. Glaucoma headaches
If you have diabetes, especially type 2 diabetes, as reported from Live Strong You are more vulnerable to glaucoma. Glaucoma is a type of vision disorder characterized by damage to the optic nerve which is usually caused by pressure inside the eye. Diabetes with the incidence of glaucoma has a fairly high number, this is because the optic nerve is sensitive to high blood sugar levels.
Glaucoma is often associated with increased pressure inside the eye, which can cause eye pain and headaches in diabetes. Headaches associated with glaucoma often feel very piercing and cause pain above and behind the eyes. Other symptoms that appear together with headaches are blurred vision, seeing shadows of circles around the light, and nausea and vomiting.
4. Neuropathic headaches
Diabetes often causes neuropathy, general term used for conditions related to abnormalities in nerve function. The word neuropathy itself means nervous disorders. Nerves in the whole body can experience disorders due to certain diseases such as diabetes and injury.
As you know, our brains have many nerves, diabetes can cause cranial nerves, one of the nerves in the brain to enlarge. This nerve neuropathy causes headaches in diabetes. Pain that is felt to be more severe if not treated immediately. According to case records in 2003 published on Journal of the Royal Society headaches related to diabetes can be very severe and disabling, but doctors often misdiagnose it as a migraine.
