High blood glucose from diabetes can damage your blood vessels and the nerves that control your heart and its blood vessels. Over time, this damage can lead to heart disease. People with diabetes tend to develop heart disease at a younger age than people without diabetes. Adults with diabetes are nearly twice as likely to have heart disease or stroke as adults without diabetes. If you have any of these warning signs of a heart attack, you need urgent medical care.
- Pain or pressure in your chest that lasts longer than a few minutes or goes away and comes back
- Pain or discomfort in one or both of your arms or shoulders, or your back, neck, or jaw
- Shortness of breath
- Sweating or light-headedness
- Indigestion or nausea (feeling sick to your stomach)
- Feeling very tired
Warning signs can be different in different people. You may not have all the listed symptoms. Women may experience chest pain, nausea, and vomiting, feel very tired (sometimes for days); and have pain that spreads to the back, neck, throat, arms, shoulders, or jaw. People with diabetes-related nerve damage may not notice any chest pain, and so it is termed as “silent heart attack”. Only minor heartburn or extreme fatigue may be the only symptoms, Other than heart attacks, tic people are more susceptible to developing heart failure.
- Symptoms of heart failure include swelling of legs, difficulty in breathing, more at night, unable to perform routine activities without breathlessness, chest discomfort on exertion.