Live Life Team
Although many diabetes symptoms are the same for everybody, there are some differences between the symptoms most commonly experienced by women and men. It is believed that as many as a third of women living with diabetes are unaware that they have the condition. Many of the symptoms that occur in women can also occur in men, so it’s necessary to consider them side by side in order to identify the problem.
Thrush infections and vaginal itching can be caused by high blood glucose levels. If they appear alongside other diabetes symptoms, a doctor may recommend a blood test. This means that it’s important to report attacks of thrush to your doctor even if you are able to treat them successfully at home.
Women with diabetes are more likely to suffer from urinary tract infections, including cystitis. These can manifest as pain in the bladder area or as bloody or cloudy urine. It’s important to get them treated as soon as possible in order to reduce the risk of a related kidney infection.
Diabetes can reduce your sex drive and the natural lubrication that your vagina produces, making sexual intercourse painful. It can also damage nerves around the vagina and clitoris, reducing sexual sensation and making it difficult to orgasm. Because diabetes can also cause fatigue, many women assume that they’re just not up to sex because they’re tired, but these problems can be independent symptoms of the same underlying illness.
Diabetes can cause circulation problems which lead to numbness in the extremities (fingers and toes) or can mean that these areas feel cold to the touch even when the rest of the body is warm. This problem also affects men with diabetes but can more easily pass unnoticed in women because women are more likely to suffer from other types of circulatory disorder.
3% to 5% of women experience diabetes symptoms during pregnancy, usually starting during the second trimester. These usually go away after birth, but they may need to be carefully monitored in the meantime. This is known as gestational diabetes. If you are getting regular blood tests during pregnancy then it is more likely to be identified quickly, reducing the associated risks.
If you know that you have diabetes, it is usually still possible for you to enjoy a healthy pregnancy, but you will need to work closely with your doctor to plan for this.
Women who menstruate often find diabetes more difficult to manage because their natural hormonal cycles interfere with their blood glucose levels. Some contraceptive pills can also have this effect.
Women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) face a higher than average risk of developing diabetes.
Women with diabetes are more likely than men with diabetes to suffer from kidney disease and depression. Although their overall rate of heart disease remains lower, they are more likely to die from it, which is thought to be because the forms of heart disease that affect women are, overall, less well understood and therefore less effectively treated.
