I am aged 80 years and I am diabetic for the past 35 years. I was controlling my diabetes with tablets. For the past five years I have not checked sugar levels of the blood except once, which showed normal fasting sugar level. Why go in for insulin, I thought.  This carelessness resulted in the infection of the left feet with a wound. Then after hospitalisation for about 4 days I come to know that my sugar levels are abnormal and insulin therapy is a must for me. I would like to know how to keep myself healthy in my old age?

The course you described is not unusual, 50 per cent of the people with diabetes require Insulin after 10 years of diabetes. This is not your mistake, this is the nature of diabetes, it worsens over time and you need to keep a close eye on the glucose control. Not checking for so many years in-between was not correct. The standard practice is to check for eye and kidney every year. The best way to keep you fit would be healthy eating in correct time, taking regular medications and keeping a close eye on your diabetes control.

I am a diabetic patient aged 47 years diagnosed for the first time just a month ago. I am a pure vegetarian. I don't have any excessive thirst or giddiness but recently, I found that the tip of my penis is little bit swollen and red and the foreskin is not coming back at the time of erection. I am not getting a proper erection for the last two months and am feeling impotent. Please advise me.

Your glucose profile is unlikely to get normalised with diet and exercise only. You need treatment. Also, you have an infection in your private parts called Balanitis (it is a well-cognized infection in people with Diabetes), and this would not get better unless sugar comes down to normal range. This is actually a cycle of uncontrolled diabetes getting more infection and infection making the diabetes more uncontrolled.

You should eat fruits regularly. This is a very old concept that in diabetes you cannot eat fruit. You should know what fruit and how much you should eat. You should take 3 to 5 portions of fruit every day (One portion of food is 1 medium apple or 1 guava or 1 pear or 1 orange or 1 small banana or 12-15 grapes or 1 slice of pineapple or 1 small bowl of papaya, etc); you can choose what you like. It is better to avoid dry fruits as they have very high calories. There are medications available for erection. There are certain precautions to be taken including dose and timing; you need to discuss this with your doctor.

YOUR QUESTIONS

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