Symptoms of diabetes in women can be slightly different from those that may be experienced by men. Diabetes is a metabolic disease, variation between both sexes in terms of anatomy, metabolism rate, hormones all play a role in the manifestation of diabetes signs and symptoms. There is more recognition amongst the medical professionals now that both sexes have different risk factors and complications when affected by diabetes.
Symptoms Of Diabetes In Women – What Are They?
Nonetheless, almost all suffering diabetes have universally common signs and symptoms including polydipsia (excess thirst), polyuria (frequent urination), fatigue, irritability, poor wound healing, prone to infections. Another early symptom of diabetes in women is frequent urinary tract infection and vaginal infection.
Women have extra risk when facing the threat of diabetes especially when they get pregnant. This is commonly known as gestational diabetes and is secondary to rapid hormonal changes during pregnancy in genetically predisposed women. This can be temporarily and resolved after giving birth, but this will increase women’s risk of getting type 2 diabetes later in life.
One way of detecting early symptoms of diabetes in women, especially those are pregnant is to do oral tolerance glucose test. This is a simple test where the person fasted overnight, then take a sweet sugary drink and blood sugar level measured over time. Those who have sugar level rise high after the drink but failed to drop rapidly afterwards are deemed have impaired glucose tolerance. Another way of detecting early diabetes is through a blood test known as HbA1c or diabetes a1c test.
As mentioned earlier, women differ from men in many ways. Recent studies had shown that women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) have higher chances of developing diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance later. It is therefore prudent that women with PCOS to have close follow up and monitor for diabetes symptoms in women.
It is also noticed that diabetes can alter the length of the menstrual cycle, and the age of onset of menopause. As the age of women getting type 2 diabetes lower, even before menopause, this irregularity of menstrual cycle can affect fertility rate. This often is associated with women who has polycystic ovary syndrome.
Yeast infection of the vagina area is another subtle symptom of diabetes in women. The high sugar in tissues encourages infections. In addition, the dryness of the vaginal area due to diabetes can predispose to women getting infections. Therefore, it will be prudent to check for this early signs of diabetes in women especially when having recurrent vaginal infections.
It is recognized that men with diabetes experience erectile dysfunction in up to 50% of the time. What about in women? Not much scientific papers have been conducted in this area but it was showed that women with diabetes have impaired sexual arousal and inadequate lubrication between 14-45% when compared to healthy women. This may lead to infertility, a symptom of diabetes in women.
For women with type 1 diabetes, it was observed they tend to have earlier menopause when compared to those non diabetic women. They may experience pre-menopausal symptoms earlier too. However, there is no strong association between type 2 diabetic women with early menopause.
Symptoms of diabetes in women are sometimes not obvious and can be misleading. The significant implications of not recognizing diabetes early in women make it more crucial that all women recognize these diabetic symptoms in women.