My Blood Sugar Is High. What Should I Do?

If you’ve been told you have high blood sugar, you’re one of the millions of Americans struggling with diabetes or a related condition, like insulin resistance or prediabetes. 

It’s essential to seek expert medical care in this case, since these conditions increase your risk of many serious health issues, including heart disease, nerve problems, and even death. 

At Triad Internal Medicine in Asheboro, North Carolina, our chronic disease management care team offers personalized help for patients struggling with high blood sugar. With our help, many patients manage and even reverse diabetes—often without the need for medications, which can have unwanted side effects.  

Take a moment to learn more about high blood sugar and the steps you can take to get it under control. 

What causes high blood sugar?

Your pancreas produces insulin. Insulin is a hormone or chemical messenger that signals your body to carry out certain activities. 

Consuming food or beverages with calories causes the pancreas to release insulin, which then gets sent into your bloodstream to move around your body. The hormone helps regulate many things, but its biggest role is helping to regulate your blood sugar levels.

It does this by bringing glucose (sugar in your blood) to your muscles, where it gets burned as fuel. If your body doesn’t need immediate fuel, insulin transports the glucose to your liver to be stored as fat for later use.

Sometimes your body can’t make insulin because of a genetic condition or a problem that damages your pancreas. When this happens, you develop type 1 diabetes or type 3c diabetes. People with these conditions must take insulin to survive. 

For most people (over 95%) with blood sugar issues, a different kind of diabetes gets diagnosed: type 2 diabetes. With this condition, your body still makes insulin, but it stops being able to use it effectively. 

Consuming more “fuel” than you burn is one of the biggest risk factors for the disease. If you eat more than you should and don’t exercise away the calories, your body stores the extra glucose as fat in your liver. 

Over time, your liver fills with this “stored energy,” and it can’t fit any additional glucose in the liver cells. As a result, the glucose stays in your bloodstream, elevating your blood sugar levels. 

This sends a signal to the other cells in your body that you have enough glucose. This leads to a condition called insulin resistance, since the cells resist using the blood glucose for energy.  

When your pancreas detects high levels of blood glucose, it pumps out even more insulin. But the insulin can’t get used, so your blood sugar levels stay high. Over time, your pancreas gets overworked and starts making less and less of this hormone. 

As a result, you develop type 2 diabetes, which increases your risk of many serious health conditions—including death. The good news is that with proper management, you can reduce your risk and even reverse the condition. 

What helps get blood sugar under control?

When you have a chronic condition, like a diabetes-related issue that triggers high blood sugar, your Triad Internal Medicine provider can create a personalized chronic disease management plan to help you get your blood sugar under control and even reverse the condition. 

For most people with insulin resistance, prediabetes, or type 2 diabetes, lifestyle changes play an integral role in managing your condition. Some people may need medications, but adjustments to diet, physical activity, and other habits can help you reclaim control of your blood sugar. 

Some of the at-home steps you can take to help lower your blood sugar include:

• Eating a whole foods, high-fiber diet rich in plant-based foods and lean proteins
• Choose foods lower on the glycemic index, which are converted to sugar more slowly
• Eat small snacks and meals throughout the day to prevent spikes in blood sugar
• Regularly monitor your blood sugar 
• Get and stay physically active with regular exercise
• Avoid alcohol and other high-sugar beverages

You should also maintain regular appointments with your chronic disease management team 

Benefits of chronic disease management

When you have a chronic disease, like type 2 diabetes, it’s important to have regular check-ins with your doctor. Your Triad Internal Medicine provider offers many tools to help you take charge of your health, including:

• Symptom charting
• Regular lab testing
• Disease education
• Weight management & nutritional counseling
• Medication if required
• At-home disease monitoring 

Learn more about how you can lower high blood sugar by scheduling an appointment online or over the phone at Triad Internal Medicine in Asheboro, North Carolina.