MNrural Health School

Archive for the ‘Diabetes’ Category

If your dog has diabetes, you may be concerned, not only with how your dog feels, but also with how much treating dog diabetes costs.

The one thing I can assure you, is if you stay with mainstream veterinary care, it is likely to cost you several arms and legs.

However, holistic veterinary care is not only far less expensive, it is also far more effective. Of course, this is my view, as a holistic practitioner, and the view of all other holistic practitioners, as we are a bit biased.

But holistic practitioners are always taught to look for the cause of any ailment. This is less often considered in mainstream veterinary care, who are taught more about which drugs to use with each condition.

You may have heard of the expression ‘you are what you eat’. In other words, what you eat has a direct impact on your health.

Holistic veterinarians have found that when dogs are fed according to natural laws, their health improves almost beyond belief. Which implies that the majority of food that dogs are fed, is actually making them unhealthy.

Remove the cause and the problem disappears.

So how much does dog diabetes cost? It may not cost you anything if all it takes to cure it, is a switch to a natural diet.

Contrary to popular belief, feeding a dog naturally tends to cost less that feeding a commercial dog food.

If your dog has had diabetes a long time and has been given medical drugs, you’ll be well aware of the cost of this, not only in monetary value, but also in the welfare of your dog.

Even at this late stage, switching to holistic care is likely to bring down the cost, although the treatment may be more complicated.  Read more...

When one’s body is incapable of producing/using insulin, then the level of blood glucose tends to rise. This can directly cause problems that may be severe in nature like coma, organ damage or even death! Such blood sugar fluctuations are commonly called diabetes. There are two categories of diabetes; Type I and Type II.

Symptoms for Type I are increased urination along with unusual thirst. There can be blurry vision along with unexpected and unexplained weight loss. Unrelieved and more than normal fatigue is also a sign of Type I. On the other hand, Type II can be classified through symptoms like weakness, extreme fatigue, prolonged healing duration, swollen and red gums as well as nerve damage. Type II is the most commonly found category among diabetic patients.

It is not necessary that one would suffer from diabetes only if he/she has higher blood glucose level. Contrary to this, lower sugar level of blood would also cause this problem. So, the normal level of glucose has to be maintained in order to stay fit and healthy and never face this problem. Better is to control your blood glucose level to normal as preventing the problem is a good solution over curing it.

One thing to keep in mind is that diabetes has the power to squeeze out even the last drop of sweetness from your life. So, instead of facing those times, it is better to reach a doctor and get yourself checked whenever you notice early signs of diabetes. These can be unexplained hunger pangs, dizziness, sweating and shakiness. It you are suffering such minor and seemingly normal changes in your routine, then you need to reach a doctor as quickly as can be. If ignored (which commonly happens), it can easily become a big trouble for the rest of your life.

DIABETES CONTROL
————————–
WHAT IS DIABETES? WHY DO WE NEED TO SLASH DOWN OUR SUGAR INTAKE?
Sugar is sweet to healthy people, but when being a diabetic, sugar has a bitter taste which is the usual reaction of a person experiencing a syndrome disorder in their metabolism called diabetes mellitus or diabetes for short. Diabetes, is a disease that causes the body to metabolize sugar poorly, which occurs when either the body attacks the cells producing insulin, the chemical that allows the metabolizing of sugar in the body’s cells also known as (Type 1 diabetes) and the body’s cells ignore insulin (Type 2 diabetes). When glucose builds up in the bloodstream, the cells become starved for energy because they do not have access to the glucose and in short term and long term frequent glucose build-up increases the acidity of the blood, damaging many of the body’s organs, including the eyes, kidneys, nerves and/or heart. Many people will become depressed and become sad if sugar is taken out of ALL junk food. Diabetes is a condition that can be prevented naturally with a balanced nutrition and can be controlled by engaging in basic exercises.

TYPES OF DIABETES
Likewise, the term “type 2 diabetes” has replaced several former terms, including adult-onset diabetes, obesity-related diabetes, and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Type 1 diabetes is characterized by loss of the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas leading to insulin deficiency. Either of the 3 types of diabetes, if not properly treated and medicated and if not being implemented regularly may lead to heart attack, eye problems, nerve damage, gum disease, kidney problems and more. In type 2 diabetes, either the body does not manufacture enough insulin or the cells pay no attention to the insulin. If you have type 2 diabetes, try increasing physical activity, decreasing your carbohydrate intake and try losing weight to serve as preliminary treatment. In spite of researchers intense studies, the permanent cure for the diabetes disorder is still unknown.  Read more...

It’s a heart rendering time if your dog has been diagnosed with diabetes. Quite apart from the added burden of the extra veterinary costs, which you may be able to ill afford, what about the cost to your dog?

Is the quality of his life going to deteriorate? How is he going to cope with regular injections of insulin, if he needs them? Most dogs hate drugs and medication and will often fight you when you try to dose them.

Are you going to have trouble with this? Are you going to get hurt, as well as your dog and your wallet?

You might be asking yourself if you could have prevented this from happening, although the vet probably told you that its a common occurrence these days.

Yes, it is common these days.

And yes, you probably could have prevented it.

While doctors and veterinarians have been trained to match particular medication with a disease, homeopaths have been trained to look for causes.

So while the medication may help to stabilise your dog’s diabetes, it’s unlikely to cure it. But if you can get to the cause, and address that, you may well be able to cure your dog’s diabetes.

Your journey to success has already started with your search for dog food for diabetes.

One of the main causes of diabetes in dogs is the food you feed him. Most commercial dog food (included that promoted by most vets) is made up of about 30% low grade meat by-products (from rendering plants which take in slaughter house waste, euthanised animals, road kill, etc), about 65% filler (which can vary from a high fat content, to melamine from China, to a cheap food because of a world glut), and the balance being synthetic nutrients (which are difficult if not impossible to digest), toxic preservatives (mostly not considered fit for human consumption), appetite stimulants and artificial colour.  Read more...

Developing Gestational Diabetes during pregnancy carries a 15 to 60 percent chance of developing Non-Insulin Dependent (Type II) after pregnancy within a 5 to15 year period of time.  It is important to determine the significant risk factors that lead to Type II diabetes as this disease has reached epidemic proportions around the world.  From 1994 to 2002, the incidence of gestational diabetes doubled to now involve 7 percent of pregnancies.  This has an increased  maternal and neonatal morbidity which includes but is not limited to elevated blood pressure, preeclampsia, eclampsia, placental abruption, maternal kidney disease, increased susceptibility to premature delivery, increased incidence of C-sections, uterine infection, bacteria in the blood, maternal death, fetal macrosomia (large infant) hypoglycemia of the infant, prematurity of the lungs even late in the third trimester, increased risk or neonatal infection, hyperbilirubenemia, intrauterine fetal death, and perinatal mortality. 

By knowing the risk factors that lead to a higher incidence of gestational diabetes, there is hope to be able to prevent them before, during, or after the pregnancy in order to reduce the complications mentioned above associated with the immediate problems with gestational diabetes.

When patients are diagnosed with Non-insulin dependent diabetes, there are a host of complications and risk factors that occur:  increased risk of heart, peripheral vascular, kidney, eye, and neurologic diseases such as heart attacks, angina, pain in legs when walking (claudication , kidney failure,  blindness, stroke, transient ischemic attack, loss of balance when walking and unable to feel feet due to peripheral nerve damage.

Several  studies show three factors  that lead to highest risk for women developing Type II diabetes after having gestational diabetes in pregnancy:

1) BMI  (Basal Metabolic Index) > 27

 Patients have a 4 to 8 fold chance of developing Type II diabetes whose BMI is greater than 27  Read more...