As a diabetic, you are at a constant risk of developing complications. What are these complications? What are their symptoms? Which body part is most affected? Let’s have the answers to these questions.

Blood Vessels

Diabetes could harm your small blood vessels. The small vessels include those in your eyes, kidneys, and nerves. The larger ones include those in your heart and lower legs.

Kidney

Kidney damage is very common in diabetes. The disease varies with each patient and the rate of its progress. Diabetic nephropathy occurs when your small blood vessels present in your kidneys get damaged. This leads to a leak of protein into your urine. As a result, your kidneys lose their ability to filter your blood. At times, dialysis may be required to flush out the toxins from your blood. In extreme cases, you may require a kidney transplant.

Nerves

Nerve damage can lead to a complete loss of sensation in your feet. Sometimes, the reverse happens. You feel constant pain in your feet. It becomes difficult to wear shoes or sandals. Even a small wound can develop into a serious infection, rotting ulcers, gangrene, and even amputation of the affected part.

In men, nerve damage may lead to impotence. Diabetic neuropathy affects the nerves connecting to the penis, thus, not letting the penis get an erection. If the penis does not get the required amount of blood flow, it may lead to erectile dysfunction.

Eyes

Your eyes are other organs to get affected. It is called diabetic retinopathy and it usually occurs in patients suffering from diabetes for as long as five years. The damage of blood vessels located at the back of your eye leads to a leakage of protein as well as blood into the retina. It also causes small aneurysms. The new blood vessels develop but are brittle. There might be bleeding from the newly developed blood vessels, which may lead to scarring, and your retina may get detached resulting in a damaged eyesight.