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Last Updated on April 15, 2024
There are many people that are either pre-diabetic or full on diabetic that struggle to manage the disease. Diabetes is a health condition that affects how your body turns food into energy. Managing diabetes is fundamental to a healthy life and involves taking medicine, eating right, and exercising regularly. However, taking care of diabetes is not just about physical health.
It also has a big impact on how people feel mentally. It can be very stressful to have to question everything that you eat. Is peanut butter healthy for diabetics? Can you eat popcorn? Over time, this and other challenges can erode your mental health. In this article, we will go over several psychological effects you may encounter when you have diabetes.
1 – Chronic stress and anxiety
Living with diabetes means having to keep a close eye on your blood sugar levels all the time. This constant monitoring can be very stressful. People with diabetes often worry about their blood sugar getting too low or too high.
This worry isn’t just about keeping blood sugar levels in check. It’s also about the possible serious health problems that can happen if diabetes isn’t managed well. Thinking about these complications can make anyone anxious.
The stress and anxiety from managing diabetes every day can also affect mental health. Feeling stressed for a long time can make people feel tired, overwhelmed, and unable to enjoy life. It can also make managing diabetes even harder.
2 – Depression
Many people with diabetes also experience depression. Studies show that depression is more common in people with diabetes than in those without it. Managing diabetes every day without a break can make some people feel hopeless and very tired.
Dealing with a condition like diabetes every day can wear a person down. It’s not just the physical work of checking blood sugar and taking medicine. It’s also the worry about keeping everything under control. Over time, this constant pressure can lead to feelings of defeat and extreme tiredness, which are signs of depression.
The relationship between diabetes and depression goes both ways. Not only can dealing with diabetes lead to depression, but being depressed can make it harder to manage diabetes. Depression can make people less likely to follow their treatment plan, eat healthy, and be active. This can make their blood sugar levels harder to manage.
3 – Eating disorders
People with diabetes often need to constantly watch what they eat. This focus on food can sometimes lead to unhealthy eating habits. In serious cases, it can even lead to eating disorders.
A specific problem for some with Type 1 diabetes is called diabulimia. This happens when someone doesn’t take their insulin on purpose to lose weight. Insulin is a medicine that helps the body use sugar from food. Doing this can also make blood sugar levels go very high, which is dangerous.
Also, people with diabetes might not like how their bodies look because of changes from their diabetes or side effects from their medicines. Gaining weight is a common side effect of some diabetes medicines.
