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Diabetes, why does my mom's skin in specific parts become itchy and turns red

my mom is 51 years old , she has diabetes and blood pressure diseases .
At first her hands started to feel itchy to a point where she couldn't stop scratching them , that happened whenever she get emotionally stressed , sad , a fight with dad etc .. . it's been almost year
now without a specific trigger we can observe , her hands , back , shoulders , and her face all feel very itchy that sometimes she start crying that it hurts her , sometimes all parts feel itchy sometimes just the hands or the shoulders and so

i've went with her to a skin doctor , he told us it's from her diabetes and suggested she should take insulin shots to mange the sugar level in her blood instead of bills .
it's not helping at all

Please anyone , Help
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Avatar universal
Hi ahmad 111110. I hope your mother would be better by now.
My father (age 50) has also got diabetes at 11.3% that is even higher then the uncontrolled level that starts above 8.1 (something and goes above).

We admit that his sugar intake was high including milkshakes, French toast, fries, rice and much more.

Can you suggest what should be done to control it and reduce to 6.5 the required level of diabetes for a diabatic patient? based on your personnel experience.

Online searches say that cut the carbs, take protein rich food, vegetables and we have planned to completely switch his diet to it.

I am really worried for him please give some suggestions and good wishes and prays for your mothers health.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
QUICK FEEDBACK :

as i thought , i made a research about the medication that mom is taking at the moment ,  It has large amount of cortisone  , which i believe it was the main reason that made her itch stop , but as far as i know , cortisone  on the long run can and will affect  the body negatively  . So , yeah , No way it's an allergy .

We are waiting for Ramadan to end so we can manage her eating habits better , and due to our way of living , we mainly depend on bread , rice in our meals , so it won't be an easy road to get used to a decent low carbs diet .

So now the itch came back because we decided to lower the does of cortisone  she takes But not as bad as it was before ,

That's for now
Helpful - 0
231441 tn?1333892766
COMMUNITY LEADER
Ahmad, you are welcome.  Please also consider the doctor's advice on taking insulin.  It is really important that your mum can normalize blood sugars and this may take both diet and medications.

There are plenty of great online sources for low carb eating.  How low carb?  Try reducing carbs to 30g of less per day.  This means carbs will be coming from non-starchy veges and non-sweet fruits.  Other foods taken will be meats of all types, cheese, nuts, eggs.  

Please let us know how your mum goes.   And come back to ask more questions if you have any.
Helpful - 0
1 Comments
Hi ;
Controlling the levels of sugar in her blood didn't help . BUT , we recently discovered that it was an allergy due to the sudden change in weather here ,since the doctor suggested a medication for allergy "the call it the spring allergy here because it appears in such time ".

But we are still trying to follow a good low carb/sugar diet because her sugar levels are still always high .

Thank you again , and i will keep you updated , and i sure will .
and thanks of everyone tried to help
231441 tn?1333892766
COMMUNITY LEADER
Hi,
your mum's skin symptoms could possibly be due to diabetic neuropathy.  This is when the nerves are damaged by continual high blood sugar.

You say that your mum's blood sugars range from 200 up to 500+.  This is very high considering that normal blood sugars should be in the range of 70 - 120.


Seems that your mum needs to get much better control of blood sugar.   I certainly agree with her doctor that she should be taking insulin.  In addition adopting a low carb / keto-style diet, may help in addressing her blood sugars.
Helpful - 0
1 Comments
that's what we are trying to work on
we are recently started a new diet, a low carbs and sugars one
hope we see results soon .
and thanks for stepping by.
  
Avatar universal
Emotional stress does not create itch, so you should continue to work with the skin doctor and her regular doctor to manage her insulin levels to see if that helps the itch.
It seems her levels were not managed well at the time she saw the skin doc based on the way you worded the skin doctor`s response. Has a doctor checked her levels after she did the shots?
Helpful - 0
8 Comments
no unfortunately  , we live in a remote area so it's a trouble to get to the skin doctor we usually go to .
but we have a small device to check the blood sugar level in her blood .
it's always high .
never been less than 200
somedays it gets up to 500+
Since doc said high levels are the cause of the skin issue then that is what needs to be addressed if possible.
even though the doctor said he thinks this is the cause, he's still not sure snice she had diabetes for a long time now.
but we are trying to keep her levels under control , but so far i don't know why it's high no matter what.
just last night we measured it and the results was 495 after she took an insulin shot , we measured again and it was 300 .
the doctor gave us instructions to how much the shot should be.
does emotional stress affect the how much her body response to insulin , or does ot affect how her body produces insulin after eating
Does the doctor know that her levels are 300 after following his instructions? You should be telling this to the doctor. Diabetes is not an anxiety disease and is solely dependent on physical issues like insulin and sugars.
Diabetes is affected by our stress levels, yes.  Here is some information. https://dtc.ucsf.edu/types-of-diabetes/type2/understanding-type-2-diabetes/how-the-body-processes-sugar/blood-sugar-stress/.  Please contact her doctor for further help on her sugar levels.  Diabetes also does directly impact our skin.  Here is some information to review on this. http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/complications/skin-complications.html.  Itchy skin is a symptom of diabetes not being under control.  

Again, please consult with her doctors for further help regarding this matter.  
@AnxiousNoMore
i don't think so , he knows that she has high levels , but i think he doesnt know that she always has high levels ..
@Sara_MHModerator

Thank you very much for the helpful links .

i definitely will .
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