Watch the warning signs: How blood sugar levels affect your body

Keep your blood sugar levels in your target range to avoid or prevent heart disease, vision loss, and kidney damage. In addition, the target range can boost energy and mood.

Following are the symptoms you might notice when you have high blood sugar:

Makes you pee more: Your kidneys must work hard to digest blood sugar. When they cannot keep up, your body eliminates them and needs water.

Makes you thirsty: To remove excess sugar, your body takes water from its tissues. A switch in your brain tells you to drink because you require fluid to generate energy, transfer nutrients, and eliminate waste.

Dry mouth: It may dry and crack as your body draws the fluid from your mouth. Less saliva and more blood sugar cause infection. Your gums may swell, and white patches may appear on your tongue and cheeks (your doctor will call this oral thrush). Water and sugar-free gum can help.

Skin problems: Your body uses water from everywhere to flush out blood sugar. That can cause dry, itchy, cracked skin on the legs, elbows, feet, and hands. High glucose levels can harm nerves. It can make cuts, wounds, or infections hard to feel. They can lead to toe, foot, or leg loss without treatment.

Vision problems: Your body may pull fluid from your eye lenses, causing blurriness. High blood sugar can damage retinal blood vessels. That can cause blindness.

Fatigue: Type 2 diabetics with high blood sugar become less sensitive to insulin, which moves energy to cells. As a result, fuel depletion can cause fatigue.

Digestive problems: High blood sugar can damage the vagus nerve, which moves food through the stomach and intestines. Because you are less hungry, you may lose weight. Acid reflux, cramps, vomiting, and constipation are possible.

Low blood sugar level shows the following symptoms:

Fatigue: Insulin helps people with diabetes lower high blood sugar. Excess insulin intake may remove glucose rapidly that your body cannot replace it. That leaves you tired.

Weird heartbeat: Hormones that raise low blood sugar can also spike your heart rate and make it skip a beat (Arrhythmia). Most diabetes drugs cause a drop in glucose.

Shakiness: Low glucose can unbalance your central nervous system, which controls movement. Your body releases hormones like adrenaline to restore levels. These substances may also make your hands shake.

Sweaty: When your blood sugar drops, your body releases hormones that make you sweat heavily. It is often the first sign of low glucose.

Hungry: Sudden, intense hunger after eating may mean your body does not correctly convert food to blood sugar. Illness or certain drugs can cause it, too. If you have diabetes, your doctor can often adjust your medication.

Nausea: Shallow blood sugar levels can cause a rebound effect. Moreover, your blood sugar swings confuse your digestive system and make you sick.

Dizziness: Glucose fuels brain cells. Without enough, you may feel tired, weak, and dizzy. A headache is possible.

Confusion: Hypoglycemia (extremely low blood sugar) makes you lose your bearings. You might slur your words or get lost. Sometimes you may not even realise you are acting strangely. Seizures and comas are possible in severe cases.

Consult with your doctor if you have any of the abovementioned symptoms to prevent serious health consequences in the long run.