7 Scary Things That Can Happen When You Don't Treat Your Diabetes

Swallowing pills, checking your blood sugar all the time, or sticking yourself with needles full of insulin probably doesn't sound like your idea of a good time. But taking steps to keep your diabetes under control is your best shot at preventing a slew of frightening complications. If you don't take care of yourself, diabetes complications typically start within 5 years, the majority of patients will progress to have multiple health issues.

Your cholesterol and blood pressure rise

With type1diabetes, your body stops producing insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar; with type 2 diabetes, your body can't properly use the insulin you do produce. In turn, your HDL (or "good") cholesterol lowers, and your levels of harmful blood fats called triglycerides rise. Insulin resistance also contributes to hardened, narrow arteries, which in turn increases your blood pressure. As a result, about 70% of people with either type of diabetes also have hypertension—a risk factor for stroke, heart disease, and trouble with thinking and memory. Failing to control high blood pressure and high cholesterol, either with diet and exercise alone or by adding medications, accelerates the rate at which all your other complications progress.

Your vision fades

More than 4 million people with diabetes have some degree of retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy is a diabetes complication that affects eyes. It's caused by damage to the blood vessels of the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye (retina). At first, diabetic retinopathy may cause no symptoms or only mild vision problems. Eventually, it can cause blindness. The early stages have no symptoms, but the longer you let things go, the darker the picture becomes. One study that looked at people with type 2 diabetes found during 20 years, about 80% of people with diabetes have retinopathy, and about 10,000 go blind each year.

Your kidneys fail

Over time, high blood glucose thickens and scars the nephrons, tiny structures within the kidneys that filter your blood. About half of those who don't take steps to control their diabetes will sustain kidney damage which will progress to kidney failure, a condition requiring either dialysis or a kidney transplant.

Your nerves fray

About 7.5% of people already have neuropathy, or nerve damage caused by high blood glucose, when they're diagnosed with diabetes. Eventually, about half of people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes will develop it. At first, you might have no symptoms or feel a mild tingling or numbness in your hands or feet. But eventually, neuropathy can cause pain, weakness, and digestive troubles as it strikes the nerves that control your gastrointestinal tract.

You may lose a foot

As damage to the long nerves between your brain and lower limbs worsens, your muscle tone slackens and the shape of your foot changes, causing bunions, flat feet, and other deformities. One wrong step or pebble in your shoe can cause a small ulcer; numbness means you may not notice it, and poor circulation from damaged blood vessels slows healing. The end result: a rampant infection that spreads to the bone. People with diabetes undergo about 73,000 lower-limb amputations per year, and about 60% of amputations overall are in people with diabetes.

You're prone to a major cardiac event

In addition to raising your blood pressure and cholesterol, high blood glucose can directly damage your veins, arteries, and heart muscle. Anyone with diabetes has nearly double the risk of heart attack, and their risk of stroke quadruples. Heart attack is the No. 1 killer in diabetics. And aside from frequently being fatal, strokes cause paralysis and other severe disabilities.