What is Hyperglycemia: Symptoms & Treatment
Key Takeaways
Hyperglycemia occurs when blood glucose levels are too high.
The most common cause of hyperglycemia is diabetes, but there are also other potential causes, including injury, illness, certain medical conditions, or certain medications.
Very high blood sugar can cause life-threatening complications, such as diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). This causes symptoms like nausea, abdominal pain, and confusion.
Treatment for very high blood sugar usually involves insulin, which is given by injection or through an insulin pump.
Over the long term, hyperglycemia causes complications such as kidney disease, heart disease, and vision loss.
Diabetes treatment helps to prevent hyperglycemia and minimize the risk of complications. This may involve oral or injectable medications and insulin therapy.
Eating a healthy diet with minimal refined carbohydrates (sugars and starches) also helps to reduce the risk of hyperglycemia.
Hyperglycemia is the medical term for blood glucose (blood sugar) that’s too high. This is generally defined as a blood glucose level of 126 mg/dL (7.0 mmol/L) or higher when fasting (meaning that you haven’t eaten for several hours), or a level of 180 mg/dL (10.0 mmol/L) two hours after eating. The most common cause of hyperglycemia is diabetes, although there are also other potential causes.
In the short term, severe hyperglycemia can cause life-threatening complications, including a loss of consciousness and even death if it’s not treated. When hyperglycemia is less severe, it still causes damage to many different body systems. Over the long term, this can lead to a variety of health complications, such as vision loss, kidney disease, heart disease, and nerve damage.
Causes of hyperglycemia
The most common cause of hyperglycemia is diabetes. However, there are also other potential causes.
Hyperglycemia and diabetes
Diabetes causes hyperglycemia, by affecting how the body processes glucose (sugar). In people with type 1 diabetes, the body doesn’t produce enough of the hormone insulin. In people with type 2 diabetes, insulin is produced, but the body’s cells don’t respond to it normally.
Insulin triggers cells throughout the body to take up glucose from the blood and either use it for energy or store it. If there isn’t enough insulin or if the cells aren’t able to respond to insulin normally, then cells won’t take up sugar from the bloodstream. As a result, sugar remains in the bloodstream, leading to high blood sugar levels.
Hyperglycemia in people without diabetes
It’s also possible for people without diabetes to experience hyperglycemia. When a person experiences a major illness or injury or is recovering from surgery, the body produces high levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Because cortisol interferes with the action of insulin, this can lead to hyperglycemia. After recovering from the illness, injury, or surgery, cortisol levels will decrease and blood sugar levels should return to normal.
Certain medical conditions can also cause hyperglycemia. These include Cushing’s syndrome, acromegaly, and pheochromocytoma. All of these conditions involve hormonal changes that interfere with the actions of insulin in the body. Similarly, certain medications, such as corticosteroids, can also interfere with the actions of insulin and lead to hyperglycemia.
Symptoms of hyperglycemia
Hyperglycemia can have both short term and long term consequences.
Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA)
Over the short term, very high blood sugar can be dangerous. A condition called diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) occurs when there’s not enough insulin to meet the body’s needs. This leads to very high blood sugar, and it also causes cells not to have enough energy from glucose, because they can’t take it up from the blood. Because of this, the body starts burning fats for energy, which produces high levels of substances called ketones. Because ketones are acidic, they change the acidity level of the blood, causing symptoms like:
Nausea and vomiting
Abdominal pain
Confusion
A strange smell to the breath (often described as “fruity smell”)
In general, the less often you experience hyperglycemia, the lower your risk for the long-term consequences of diabetes. This is why it’s important to try to prevent high blood sugar. Even if your blood sugar isn’t high enough to cause immediate life-threatening consequences, it’s still damaging to your body.
A test called hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) is often used to check your average blood sugar level over the previous three months. For people with diabetes, this will usually be checked two to four times per year. The goal is generally to keep your HbA1c level at 7.0% or less, because this has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of complications from diabetes. Those with an HbA1c level of 6.5% or less have the lowest risk of these complications.
Treatment for hyperglycemia
Exercise and even mild physical activities such as walking can lower your blood sugar by making your body more sensitive to insulin – physical activity has both immediate and longer-term effects on insulin sensitivity.
Recommended Reading: How Does Exercising Help Diabetes—And What Exercises Should You Do?
Taking insulin will almost always lower blood sugar quickly. If you already take insulin to treat your diabetes, then taking a little extra insulin when you have hyperglycemia will generally correct the problem.
Your treatment team will teach you how to determine the right amount of insulin to take (by injection or through your pump) when your blood sugar is high. Make sure that you’re using a short-acting insulin to treat hyperglycemia. If you use a long-acting insulin, then you’re more likely to experience hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, later.
If you have type 2 diabetes and don’t normally take insulin, then taking insulin at home will not be possible. If you realize that you missed a dose of your diabetes medication, taking this may help to correct hyperglycemia. If your blood sugar is very high, you may need to go to the hospital to receive treatment, usually with insulin. If you’re experiencing symptoms like confusion, dry mouth, or nausea, and your blood sugar is high, you should seek medical attention immediately.
If you have diabetes, it’s very important to keep your blood sugar under control to prevent the long-term consequences of the condition. If you frequently experience episodes of hyperglycemia, then your doctor will adjust your diabetes treatment to help prevent this.
For people with type 1 diabetes, treatment generally involves taking insulin, either through injections or an insulin pump. Your dose of insulin will be adjusted to keep your blood sugar from rising too high, while also minimizing the chances of it falling too low.
Type 2 diabetes is often treated with oral or injectable medications. There are a number of different medication options, each with its own pros and cons. There’s no one-size-fits-all treatment for type 2 diabetes, and you may need to try various medications until you find a plan that will work for you.
Lifestyle is also extremely important for people with diabetes. For those with type 2 diabetes, weight loss can often help to reduce insulin resistance and improve your blood sugar control. Eating a healthy diet is also important for people with any type of diabetes.
What should you eat for hyperglycemia?
There’s no specific food that will quickly lower blood sugar. When your blood sugar is too low, then taking a little sugar will quickly raise it. However, there’s no food that can quickly lower blood sugar when it’s too high. If you’re having complications of very high blood sugar, insulin is generally the best way to lower it.
To help avoid hyperglycemia, you should focus on eating fewer refined carbohydrates (sugars and starches). Instead, aim to eat your carbs in the form of whole foods that contain fiber, such as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. With these foods, carbs will enter the blood more slowly, which helps to avoid a spike in blood sugar. Eating some protein along with your carbs will also help to slow the absorption and prevent a blood sugar spike.
Some people choose to eat a low-carb diet, which contains very few total carbohydrates, in order to avoid hyperglycemia. Although this may help to keep blood sugar under control, it can also have other consequences. For example, low-carb diets can increase LDL cholesterol levels, which is associated with an increased risk of heart disease. If you’re interested in trying a low-carb diet, it’s best to consult with a nutritionist in order to develop a plan that will be safe and will meet your body’s nutritional needs.
Our NOVI Magnum clients have support from a nutritionist to help them learn about the best ways to eat with diabetes, and to develop a healthy eating plan that will work for them.
What happens if you do not treat your hyperglycemia?
It’s important to take hyperglycemia seriously, as it can have serious consequences if left untreated.
In the short term, very high blood sugar levels can be life-threatening, by causing DKA or diabetic hyperosmolar syndrome. If you experience severe hyperglycemia, and you don’t treat it, then this could be fatal. Any blood sugar level of 240 mg/dL (13.3 mmol/L) or higher should prompt immediate attention. If you can’t quickly lower your blood sugar by taking insulin, then you should seek medical care urgently.
Even if your blood sugar levels are not high enough to be immediately dangerous, it’s still important to take hyperglycemia seriously. When your average blood sugar level is too high over a long period of time, the body slowly accumulates damage to a variety of body systems. The better your blood sugar control, the lower your risk of complications like kidney disease, heart disease, and vision loss.
To help keep your blood sugar under control, regular monitoring is crucial. Devices such as a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) systems provide continuous, dynamic glucose information up to every minute. With the CGM, you can catch cases of high sugar levels and low sugar levels as they happen, avoiding the potentially dangerous consequences.
In addition, it’s important to be diligent about sticking with your diabetes treatments. Ensure that you’re staying in touch with your diabetes treatment team, and constantly communicating information about your blood sugar levels with them. They can help to adjust your treatment plan, to help you achieve good blood sugar control and minimize the number of episodes of hyperglycemia that you experience.
Our clients are able to use the custom-designed NOVIFY app to stay in communication with their healthcare team, which helps to facilitate the process of adjusting diabetes medications in order to keep your blood sugar within the normal range as often as possible. Our holistic NOVI Magnum program addresses all aspects of diabetes care, including medical treatment as well as healthy lifestyle support.
By minimizing hyperglycemia and keeping your blood sugar under control, you can live a long and healthy life with diabetes.