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| Categories: Consequences of diabetes |
| Consequences of diabetes | |
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Diabetes and our skin
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Optimum regulation of blood glucose and careful personal hygiene are essential if you want to have a healthy skin.
It might be a consequence of diabetes that the skin is badly supplied with blood and nutrients. Furthermore, the sickness weakens the immune system which usually fights against bacteria, virus and fungi. Lukewarm water and a mild acid soap clean the skin. Greasy products are a fine thing but after cleaning the face you should put on cream. As diabetes sometimes causes a decreased production of sweat and sebum, the skin might be dry and chapped. This is due to changes of the blood vessels (diabetic angiopathy) and the nerves (diabetic neuropathy). And that is why besides a good regulation of the diabetes, lipid and moist are important to recreate and protect the skin. Emulsions and other care products containing a sufficient amount of lipid and moisturizer are very good. Especially urea, collagen, mucopolysaccharides or aloe vera do have a very good ability of binding water. Additional agents such as panthenol, allantoin, vitamin E or extracts of hamamelis repair the skin. Pure lipid creams are bad. They thickly lay on the skin and the warmth is stacked up under them. This might cause inflammation. Those creams should only be used in extreme cold or in summer when you are spending a long time in the water.
Fungi usually attack the surface of the skin and the nails. They like it warm and damp. Parts of the body which especially are endangered are those were skin touches skin, e.g.: the wrinkles on the belly, the room between the toes, the skin under the breasts and the room between the fingers as well. If the fungus has settled already, you should employ products that take away the fungus' vitality. Ringworms of the nail always have to be treated with medication, otherwise they will not go away. You definitely have to see a doctor. On a nail suffering from a fungus you will find more germs than on the whole body surface of a healthy human. Those germs mean permanent stress for the immune system.
A lack of zinc due to the increased secretion of the kidneys is a common problem of diabetics. Dry skin, eczema, inflamed lips and angles of the mouth as well as slowed down wound healing might be symptoms of a lack of zinc. Furthermore, the immune system might be weakened and so the body can easily be attacked by fungal infections.
from the pharmacy-magazine EXTRA : Diabetes
| Overview over diabetic skin diseases |
| Necrobiosis lipoidica | As a first symptom, red papules as big as lentils can be found on the lower leg. By and by they develop into brown-red spots as big as a hand which later become yellow. This disease might occur years before diabetes is diagnosed. An effective treatment of lipiodic necrobiosis is not known in classical medicine but sometimes it spontaneously heals up. |
| Eruptive Xanthoma | Yellowish-red nodes can be found on the forearm or on the knee. They develop because of lipopexia. |
| Acanthosis nigricans | In the armpits, on the neck and on further parts of the skin of type 2 diabetics greyish-brown, velvety swellings can be found. |
| Vitiligo | Type 1 diabetics often do have pigmentolysis. In those cases, white spots occur on the skin. They might expand but also heal again. |
source : "Problemzone Haut" in "Diabetiker Ratgeber : August 2002", p.15
Translated by Jella Eifler
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