What Are the Effects of Diabetes on Your Physical and Financial Health?

Diabetes is a life-long disease having several negative implications

Diabetes is a chronic disease, having no cure and lasting a life time. While diabetes is a metabolic disease, affecting how food is digested by the body for energy and growth, it acts as a silent killer.

Effects of diabetes on a person’s physical and financial well-being are negative and in plenty. Not only is diabetes the largest cause of kidney failure and blindness but it also makes healing from minor infections harder for the body.

Cardiovascular Disease

Typical effects of diabetes like heart disease and stroke are the most common causes of death in adults. High blood pressure, high cholesterol as well as blood sugar levels are common health complications of those with diabetes that lead to cardiovascular diseases. The longer someone has diabetes, the higher is the chance of them developing a heart disease.

One of the leading causes of death in India now is cardiovascular disease as per a recent report. However, the situation is even grimmer for people with diabetes because cardiovascular diseases are almost twice as fatal for diabetics than they are for others.

Not only is the treatment for cardiovascular diseases one of the most expensive but, it also has an occupational cost that cannot be quantified. People with cardiovascular diseases cannot work high-pressure high-stress jobs.

Kidney Failure

One of the main effects of diabetes on the physical health of the person is kidney failure and complications. About 20 to 30 % of people with diabetes develop diabetic nephropathy. Diabetic nephropathy is a chronic disease that has no cure and requires lifelong treatment.

While not all cases lead to kidney failure, the ones that do require dialysis or a kidney transplant, the cost of which easily runs into lakhs.

One chronic disease on top of the other not only has significant negative effects on the body and the overall immune system but also make the cost of treatment and health care an unavoidable and constant affair. This goes to show the importance of health insurance, and the benefit it brings.

Visual Complications

• Cataracts

Cataract is a visual condition that makes the eye’s naturally clear lens cloudy and opaque, not allowing light to pass through it as it normally would. This restricts light from reflecting on the retina properly and makes vision cloudy and blurry. While cataracts are usually age-related, diabetics tend to contract them at a much younger age.

• Glaucoma

When there is a gradual increase in the normal fluid pressure of the eyes, glaucoma occurs, damaging the optic nerve that can lead to possible vision loss. What’s worse is that there are no symptoms until there is a loss of peripheral vision, and is only detected when significant damage is already done.

The longer someone has had diabetes, the higher is the chance of them being affected by glaucoma. Diabetics are twice as susceptible to glaucoma as those without diabetes.

Other visual complications that are effects of diabetes include retinopathy and macular oedema that affect vision. Being affected with such visual conditions not only requires large amounts of money for corrective surgery, in cases where it’s possible, but also affect one’s ability to work their daily nine-to-five jobs, putting their major source of income at risk.

Nerve Damage

A diabetic’s blood vessels are not able to deliver sufficient oxygen. Another negative effect of diabetes, which can lead to nerve damage is called neuropathy. Research shows that one in two people diagnosed with diabetes at some point develop some level of nerve damage.

The most common kind of neuropathy is peripheral neuropathy that causes pain and numbness in various parts of the body including toes, legs, and arms, affecting their sensory and motor functions. Another type of neuropathy affects the autonomic nervous system and organs. There’s no way to reverse the nerve damage. In addition to living with chronic pain, treatments to manage the condition cost a couple lakh rupees.

Diabetes gets worse with age and the cost of treatment required to manage the effects of diabetes on the body also rises at an increasing rate. This combination of physical and financial deterioration has a significant impact on the person’s emotional and mental well-being, making them succumb to alcoholism or depression.

To reduce the financial burden of this serious disease and to provide the best treatment, getting a health insurance policy is pivotal.