The three major symptoms of diabetes are:
Polyuria (The need to urinate frequently)
Polydipsia (Increased thirst & fluid intake)
Polyphagia (Increased appetite)
What happens when a person develops diabetes and reports these symptoms?
These symptoms are caused by the effect of diabetes on the body.
If the level of glucose in the blood becomes too high, excess glucose is removed from the blood by the kidneys and excreted via the urine (glycosuria).
This results in greater urine production and causes the patient to urinate frequently.
Water held in the cells is required to replace lost blood volume, and thus causes dehydration and thirst.
If you recognise these symptoms, it’s well worth seeing your doctor for a diabetes test. If you recognise these symptoms in a child, there’s extra urgency as if it is type 1 diabetes, the symptoms can advance relatively quickly and become dangerous.
