Journal of Clinical & Experimental Pharmacology

A Brief Note on Hyperglycemia-High Blood Sugar

Abea Voku^* Department of Pharmacology, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
^*Correspondence: Dr. Abea Voku, Department of Pharmacology, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Email:

Received: 10-Jun-2021 Published: 01-Jul-2021, DOI: 10.35248/2161-1459.21.11.287

About the Study

The blood sugar reading of more than 180 mg/dL or any reading above your target range is too high. A blood sugar reading of 300 mg/dL or more can be dangerous. If you have 2 readings in a row of 300 or more, call your doctor. Anything that can raise your blood sugar can cause it to go too high. Not having the right dose or kind of diabetes medicine, being ill or stressed, forgetting to take your diabetes pills or insulin, doing less exercise than usual, or eating more carbohydrates than usual are all things that can cause your blood sugar to go too high. Although it is frustrating, blood sugar levels can also be too high for no clear reason. Sometimes these high levels may be the first sign of an infection, illness or stress. Blood sugar levels can go very high when you are ill. Talk with your health care team about creating a ‘sick day plan’ to manage your diabetes when you have a cold, flu or other illness.

At times you might not notice any symptoms of high blood sugar. Other times, you may feel the way you did when you first had diabetes. You may feel weak and tired; have blurred vision; go to the bathroom more often; have a dry mouth; be thirsty; feel nauseated and vomit. If you have any of these symptoms, check your blood sugar level to see if that is the problem. If your blood sugar levels are high for several days, you may also feel hungry, nauseated or dizzy when you stand. If your blood sugar keeps going higher, other people may notice that you act confused. This is an emergency, and you need to go to the hospital right away. If you aren’t treated, you can go into a coma.

Drink plenty of water or sugar-free fluid to help “flush” the sugar from your bloodstream. Blood sugar can be high due to illness or infection, stress, less activity than normal, missed diabetes medicine, eating more carbohydrates, a new medicine. If you have just not been in your usual routine, your blood sugar should go back to normal once your routine goes back to normal. But if you feel ill, see blood sugar over 300 twice in a row, or see blood sugar above your target range for more than a week, then you should call your doctor. Give them something sugary to eat or drink. This will help in bringing the sugar level to the normal range. It could be fruit juice, fizzy drink, three teaspoons of sugar, or sweet.

According to recent research, type 2 diabetes cannot be cured, but individuals can have glucose levels that return to nondiabetes range, (complete remission) or pre-diabetes glucose level (partial remission) The primary means by which people with type 2 diabetes achieve remission is by losing significant amounts of weight. We talk of remission and not a cure because it isn’t permanent. The beta cells have been damaged and the underlying genetic factors contributing to the person’s susceptibility to diabetes remain intact. Over time the disease process reasserts itself and continued destruction of the beta cells ensues. An environmental insult such as weight gain can bring back the symptomatic glucose intolerance. Patients may also go into remission when prior to treatment they were glucose toxic. Glucose toxicity can temporarily shut down insulin production from the beta cell. When glucose levels are lowered the beta cells begin to function again. This is often seen in people who have had untreated diabetes for a long time and the level is acutely elevated. They may require insulin for a short period of time and once the glucose level is lowered and the beta cells start to function again they then can often revert to pills or lifestyle management.