How it started

I haven’t been able to post for almost a week now, and that’s because my grandmother has fallen victim to diabetes. One day my aunt came home from work and found her in convulsions.  She was foaming at the mouth and her eyes had rolled back into her head. We all had a nasty shock, as we hadn’t the slightest notion of what had happened.

 After rushing her to the hospital, we realized that she had diabetes, and since no one knew about it, it had gone untreated, and hence she had slipped into a diabetic coma. Fortunately she has come out of it now, but her overall health has deteriorated so much, she is now an invalid – a far cry from the vital little old lady she was before.

In retrospect we ought to have been more careful, what with diabetes running in the family. As a result, my family has started keeping in better shape and we all are on the constant lookout for any telltale symptoms of the dreaded condition.

Symptoms

The symptoms associated with diabetes usually some combination of the following: excessive thirst, excessive urination, blurred vision, dramatic weight loss, fatigue or lethargy, hunger, and sometimes even bad breath. 

Types

 Diabetes mellitus is essentially a hereditary disease, and although any form of the disease is the lack of insulin in the body, there are 3 distinct classifications, based upon the causes:

There is the first kind: Type 1, where the body doesn’t produce enough insulin to take care of the digestive requirements of the body. This could be caused by the destruction of the pancreatic beta cells and hence leads to insulin-dependency, requiring lifelong monitoring. This kind usually appears in young persons, sometimes even teenagers, mostly under 35.

The second kind of diabetes, Type 2, is maturity-onset diabetes. This kind of diabetes is thought to be caused because of the body’s lack of response to the insulin being produced in the system, or where the target cells develop a kind of resistance. This has the effect of requiring an abnormally high level of insulin which the body cannot possibly produce.

The third kind is known as gestational diabetes, where, during pregnancy, the hormones make the cells of the body resistant to insulin. This kind of diabetes usually occurs in women predisposed to diabetes, but mostly resolves with the delivery.

Treatment

 Considering my grandmother had to deal with a very severe case of Type 2 diabetes, it wasn’t possible to forego the insulin injections. But even so, there has been a definite change in lifestyle, for all of us.

Ayurveda

 There are foods that are prescribed in the Ayurvedic school of medicine, which have beneficial effects on the levels of sugar in the body. Of these, the most effective treatments include bitter-gourd or karella. The bitter-gourd is an extremely bitter-tasting vegetable. Mostly it is eaten fried, but for diabetes, the vegetable should be boiled and eaten with the seeds. The seeds are the bitterest part of the vegetable; however they are vital to the treatment.

Herbalism

Herbalism prescribes onions and garlic for reducing the sugar levels in the body. Onions are as effective as insulin, as a matter of fact, but are slower to take effect. Garlic is in any case a blood purifier, so it is beneficial is non-diabetic situations also. Fenugreek seeds can also be steeped in hot water to make a decoction that can be drunk daily.

The herbal remedies must not be taken as an alternative to any insulin treatments that are prescribed by doctors. They are meant to supplement the treatment, and perhaps have the long-term effect of curing the disease.

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