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Thank you for your interest in the Natural Medicine approach to treating disease and healthy living! Caring Medical is currently a full time Prolotherapy doctor's office, headed by Ross Hauser, MD and we are blessed to fill the needs of patients seeking an alternative to surgery. We are accepting new patients and athletes suffering from chronic pain, sports injuries, and arthritis for treatment with Prolotherapy. Due to this large demand in Prolotherapy, we are not currently accepting new patients for natural medicine conditions, this includes autoimmune conditions, weight loss, menopause, hormones, or cancer. Through the years, we have seen so many lives turn around for the better with some of the methods discussed on this page, and encourage you to seek a Natural Medicine practitioner at www.acam.org.
Diabetes is a disease characterized by high blood glucose caused either by the pancreas producing insufficient amounts of insulin, or the muscle, fat and liver cells not responding normally to the insulin, or both. Diabetes currently affects about 17 million Americans, with another 6 million unaware that they have the disease. The three most common types of diabetes are type 1 diabetes, also called insulin-dependent diabetes or juveniles diabetes; type 2, or adult-onset, the most common form; and gestational diabetes.
Gestational diabetes is actually another form of type 2 diabetes that develops during pregnancy, and usually resolves when the pregnancy is over. It does, however, put the woman at risk for developing the more permanent disease later in life. Gestational diabetes affects more that 4 percent of all pregnant women in the United States each year.
How does gestational diabetes develop?
Gestational diabetes refers to high blood glucose levels that develop at any time during pregnancy in a woman who does not have diabetes. The condition usually develops late in the pregnancy after the baby’s body has been formed, around the 24th to the 28th weeks of pregnancy. In most healthy adults, the pancreas releases a hormone called insulin into the bloodstream each time a meal is consumed. Insulin encourages our body’s tissues and muscles to use up the glucose from our food as a basic fuel to provide energy to the cells.
Although most scientists are not sure what causes gestational diabetes, some believe the hormones from the placenta that help the baby develop block the action of the mother’s insulin. This in turn causes insulin resistance, which makes it hard for the mother’s body to use insulin. There is also evidence to support the hypothesis that eating a high amount of carbohydrates during pregnancy can impact insulin production just as it does in adults with pre-diabetes who develop the full-blown disease.
Gestational diabetes starts when the mother’s body cannot use all of the insulin it needs for pregnancy. The pancreas of a woman with gestational diabetes works overtime to produce insulin in an effort to control the amount of glucose the growing baby receives. Since the mother’s insulin cannot cross the placenta, glucose and other nutrients will. The baby’s pancreas will then make a lot of extra insulin to get rid of the glucose not needed for energy to help the baby grow.
While the symptoms of gestational diabetes are usually mild and not life-threatening to the pregnant woman, the increased maternal glucose levels are associated with an increased rate of perinatal complications including birth trauma, hypoglycemia and jaundice. Risk factors for gestational diabetes include advancing maternal age, African or Hispanic ancestry, obesity, gestational diabetes in a previous pregnancy, a birth weight of more than nine pounds in a previous infant, an unexplained death in a previous infant or newborn, a congenital malformation in a previous child and recurrent infections. Also, as noted, a diet high in carbohydrates during pregnancy may also be a significant contributing factor.
What are the symptoms of gestational diabetes?
Although women with gestational diabetes usually have no symptoms, individuals with elevated blood sugar levels may experience the following:
- Increased thirst
- Increased urination
- Weight loss in spite of increased appetite
- Fatigue
- Nausea and vomiting
- Frequent infections including those of the bladder, vagina and skin
- Blurred vision
Low blood sugar symptoms, on the other hand, include sweating, shaking, headaches, seizures, dizziness, confusion, blurred vision and personality change, as well as blurred vision, nausea and vomiting. If symptoms are not treated quickly, ketoacidosis, an abnormal level of acid in the body, can occur. In general, poorly controlled diabetes can lead to serious health issues such as diabetic cataracts, kidney failure, infertility, impotence, nerve damage, delayed wound healing, recurrent infections and even death.
Conventional medical treatments may help maintain sugar levels during gestational diabetes but they do not get at the root of the problem. By addressing the underlying nutritional, hormonal and immunologic physiology of the pregnant woman, as natural medicine therapies do, gestational diabetes can be kept under control.
Discover why we believe that natural medicine treatments are the best way to treat gestational diabetes.
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