Glucose patients who are going to have surgery have to pay more attention than the general population. Today, we will talk to you about the things that sugar lovers need to pay attention to if they are having surgery.
Glucose patients need to be careful about surgery
Because of the disease basis of diabetes, long-term high blood sugar can bring damage to many tissues and organs in the body, so the chances of sugar lovers undergoing surgery are higher than usual.
And many complications of diabetes, if they become severe, need to undergo surgery, such as diabetic eye disease, diabetic lower extremity arteriopathy, and diabetic foot. However, also due to the disease basis of diabetes, diabetics have a higher risk of post-operative infection due to slow wound healing, and they are prone to atherosclerosis, which may also increase the risk of heart problems.
Therefore, diabetic patients undergoing surgery should pay special attention.
Before surgery
Before surgery, it is important for sugar patients to work with their doctors to develop the most appropriate and safe surgical plan. In the weeks before surgery, focus on controlling your blood sugar.
Depending on the surgery, the doctor may arrange some pre-operative tests, and then have a pre-operative talk with the actual situation to inform some precautions for the surgery.
At this time, you should seize the time to communicate with the doctor, tell him/her about your condition, and also carefully explain to him/her the current treatment plan for blood sugar control, and he/she will guide you to temporarily adjust the sugar lowering plan according to the needs of the surgery.
Metformin: Ask your doctor if or when you need to stop the medication. Typically, patients are asked to stop metformin 48 hours before and 48 hours after surgery to reduce the risk of lactic acidosis;
Other oral hypoglycemic agents: Tell the doctor what medications you have been taking recently, the dose, and frequency;
Insulin: ask the doctor what dose to use the night before and the day of surgery and when to give the shot.
The risk of surgery may be higher if you already have complications from diabetes. Tell your doctor if you have heart, kidney or eye problems, or if you feel numbness in your legs and feet. The doctor may schedule some more tests for these complications to see if these problems affect the surgery.
During surgery
The focus during surgery is on maintaining blood sugar levels.
The general recommendation for intraoperative diabetic patients is to maintain a blood sugar level of 6.0 to 10.0 mmol/L. If the blood sugar is well controlled during surgery, the surgery will be more effective and the recovery will be faster after surgery.
During surgery, the surgeon may use insulin and glucose, which are administered through an intravenous drip, to help keep our blood glucose stable.
After surgery
Surgery is a factor that may cause blood sugar fluctuations, so it is important to monitor blood sugar levels frequently after surgery.
If there is difficulty in eating, frequent vomiting, poor mental state after surgery, and less activity than usual, blood sugar will be more difficult to control after surgery.
Due to the effects of diabetes, it takes more time for sugar patients to heal their wounds. If it is a relatively large surgery, do not always think about early discharge, be prepared for the need to stay in the hospital for more days, adjust the blood sugar to be stable, and the doctor’s judgment can be discharged before going through the discharge procedures to avoid blood sugar fluctuations and recurrence. Usually, patients with diabetes stay in the hospital longer than patients without diabetes.
After the surgery, you should pay attention to yourself and observe. If there is fever, redness, swelling, pain or some fluid oozing from the surgical incision, it may be an infection, so you should tell your doctor quickly to avoid aggravating the infection and making it difficult to control your blood sugar.
In addition, for those who need to stay in bed after surgery, remember to turn over regularly to prevent bed sores. If you can get out of bed, you should get out of bed more often.
Of course, diabetic doctors do not want to see their readers, because of some disease, the disease is so serious that they need to go to surgery. However, we do need to know about it, just in case.
If you need to undergo surgery, the general principle is to cooperate with your doctor, control your blood sugar, and be a good little nurse so that you can recover soon.