BETA - What are signs and symptoms of high blood sugar?

What are signs and symptoms of high blood sugar? So high blood sugar you can compare to patients who have diabetes. So they are the ones who have like persistently high levels of blood sugar. The symptoms that can be associated would be polyuria, meaning increased frequency of urination, or polydipsia, meaning increased thirst, and then polyphasia, so meaning having a big appetite and wanting to eat a lot. So those would be some symptoms of high blood sugar. What are signs and symptoms of low blood sugar? So low blood sugar on the other hand can make you feel lightheaded or dizzy like you could about to be passed out or have fine tremors or shaking and sweating. So those would be kind of symptoms to look out for if your blood sugar is running low. How are blood sugars monitored? So it is usually blood glucose is a part of the comprehensive metabolic panel that your doctor usually orders, so CMP or the BMP basic metabolic panel. So usually that includes the kidney function, electrolytes, liver enzymes, and your blood glucose level. For diabetics, the way that they are diagnosed with diabetes is actually having a fasting blood glucose level greater than 130 and impaired glucose tolerance would be between 100 and be classified as impaired fasting glucose and less than 100 is considered normal. What therapies have been known to affect blood sugar levels for myeloma? So the big one I would say is going to be dexamethasone, which is a steroid or corticosteroids that are part of most myeloma regimens and they're notorious to cause high blood sugar levels even in patients who are non-diabetic and especially worse in their blood sugar control in patients who are diabetic. So anybody who is on dexamethasone should very carefully monitor their sugar or the doctor should help monitor their sugars carefully and make adjustments to their diabetic medications. They may need to go up on the dose of certain medications or even add certain medications if their sugars are not being controlled as they are on dexamethasone. Are there any medications to help control blood sugar levels? Yeah, so definitely. So I think diet plays a major role in this aspect too. So even patients that are not diabetic but dexamethasone is causing steroid-induced hyperglycemia is the terminology that we use. I think again incorporating more complex carbohydrates and not simple sugars that can really raise your blood sugar to a high level. I think those can be good or eating high fiber diets and basically foods that have a low glycemic index would be more beneficial rather than taking in high glycemic index foods like sweetened beverages or cookies or candy and things like that. So if someone does have symptoms of having a low blood sugar it can be treated with administration of just simple sugars or juices or like a glucose tablet. So people who are diabetic, who are on insulin or other medications that can really drop the sugar levels really low, they do tend to carry glucose tablets in their pocket or just carrying some sort of instant sugar reliefs like juices for example would be a way to treat hypoglycemia. And then of course if it is dangerously low it can be treated in the ICU setting or in the hospital setting where we can give you IV fluids that contain sugar.