Diabetes can affect different parts of your body. If you have trouble digesting food, feel like you always have heartburn, or feel like you could be physically sick at any time, there may be a complication affecting your digestive tract. You could have what is called gastroparesis.
The term ‘diabetic belly’ is not a medical term but rather a descriptive way of referring to gastroparesis in individuals with diabetes. It highlights the relationship between the condition and diabetes, emphasizing that gastroparesis is one of the potential complications.
What Is Diabetic Gastroparesis?
Diabetic gastroparesis occurs when diabetes has damaged the vagus nerve. This is a long cranial nerve that regulates digestion, along with other body functions. This nerve controls how fast your stomach empties. When it is damaged, the muscles in the stomach and the rest of the digestive tract cannot function properly, so food stays in your stomach longer than necessary.
Diabetes is one of the biggest risk factors for developing gastroparesis. It’s more common among people with type 1 diabetes, but you’re also at greater risk if you have type 2 diabetes for more than 10 years.
What Are The Symptoms?
You might have diabetic gastroparesis if you experience some or all of the following signs.
- Nausea or vomiting.
- Heartburn or reflux.
- Loss of appetite.
- Bloating.
- Unintended weight loss.
- Feeling full easily.
- Stomach spasms.
- Unstable blood glucose levels.
You may experience minor or severe symptoms depending on how much damage there is to the vagus nerve. These signs can flare up at any time. However, you may experience them particularly when you eat foods that are high in fiber and fat because they are slow to digest.
What Are The Complications?
Having diabetic gastroparesis makes it more difficult to stabilize blood sugar levels. Because of the irregularity of food digestion, blood glucose is also hard to regulate. It can be too high or too low.
When your sugar levels are too high, it can lead to kidney damage, eye damage, neuropathy, heart disease, and foot complications. When it’s too low, you may experience shakiness, dizziness, seizures, or diabetic coma.
Diabetic gastroparesis can also cause malnutrition, undigested food masses called bezoars, electrolyte imbalances, dehydration, esophageal inflammation, and bacterial overgrowth in the digestive tract.
It can also lead to depression because this chronic condition can be overwhelming and exhausting.
Treating Diabetic Gastroparesis
Do not self-diagnose! You do not know what is going on inside you. Your doctor will do a physical examination and a few tests, such as a barium X-ray, gastric emptying scintigraphy, blood tests, imaging, or an upper endoscopy.
The biggest component of treating gastroparesis is managing blood sugar levels. You’ll have to monitor your blood glucose more frequently, and your doctor may change your insulin regime accordingly.
Other medications can also help manage the symptoms of gastroparesis. These include metoclopramide or erythromycin which can relieve nausea and stimulate muscles in the stomach to help in proper digestion. In severe cases, you might need intravenous nutrition or a feeding tube, which will bypass the stomach completely and deliver the nutrients directly to the intestine for absorption.
Dietary changes are also critical in treating diabetic gastroparesis. You’ll be recommended to eat frequent smaller meals, limit high-fiber foods, avoid carbonated drinks and alcohol, and avoid high-fat foods.
Some of the best foods to eat are lean meats and fish, tofu, eggs, and well-cooked vegetables.
Taking a walk after a meal can also help in proper digestion.
In Summary
Gastroparesis is where the normal functioning of the stomach muscles is affected. This leads to the delay of stomach contents being emptied into the small intestine, which is what causes pain and discomfort. When gastroparesis occurs in individuals with diabetes, it can sometimes be colloquially referred to as ‘the diabetic belly’ due to its connection with the disease.
Diabetes can result in many complications as time goes by and diabetic gastroparesis is one of them. Now that you’re armed with the basic knowledge of what this chronic condition is, you have a better chance of preventing it from happening or managing your condition more successfully.
The likelihood of developing complications varies from person to person, but when you know how to best manage your blood sugar levels daily, you can improve your outlook.
