Diabetes Specialist
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Esperanza-Hope Primary Care
Primary Care Practices & Internal Medicine located in Mesa, AZ
Diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death in the United States, and more than 100 million Americans have prediabetes or diabetes. If you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, or experience symptoms of the disease, the experienced, bilingual primary care physicians at Esperanza Hope Primary Care in Mesa and Phoenix, Arizona, are here for you. They use a conservative approach to screen for, diagnose, and treat diabetes to reduce your risk of serious complications. Schedule an appointment by phone or use the online booking tool.
Diabetes Q&A
What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a common chronic disease that inhibits your body from adequately processing food into energy. When you have type 1 diabetes, your body doesn’t make enough of a hormone called insulin. Alternatively, when you have type 2 diabetes your body can't process insulin properly. Type 1 diabetes accounts for 5-10% of cases, and type 2 diabetes occurs in 90-95% of patients diagnosed with diabetes.
Insulin is a hormone your body uses to move glucose from your blood into cells within the body. When this function doesn’t work correctly, sugar can build up in your blood and over time may cause severe complications – such as blindness, heart disease, kidney failure, or lower extremity amputations.
What are the symptoms of diabetes?
If you experience one or more of the following symptoms, see a practitioner at Esperanza Hope Primary Care to get screened for diabetes:
- Excessive thirst or hunger
- Frequent urination
- Sudden vision changes
- Unexplained weight loss
- Chronic fatigue
- Numbness or tingling in your feet or hands
- Slow-healing sores
- Dry skin
- Frequent infections
- Irritability
If you experience diabetes symptoms, seeking early treatment is the key to avoiding potentially serious complications. Your practitioner uses a simple blood test to diagnose your condition.
What are the risk factors for diabetes?
Although anyone can develop type 1 or type 2 diabetes, the following factors increase your risk:
- Family history of diabetes
- Genetic factors
- Overweight and obesity
- Older age
- A history of gestational diabetes
- Being sedentary
- Being African American, Hispanic, American Indian, or Asian American
- Having polycystic ovary syndrome, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol
To lower your risk of developing diabetes, eat a variety of healthy foods, especially fruits and vegetables, exercise at least 30 minutes a day, and lose weight if you’re overweight.
How is diabetes treated?
Practitioners at Esperanza Hope Primary Care use various methods to treat pre-diabetes and diabetes. They recommend the most conservative, holistic treatments first but understand the importance of medication to control blood sugar levels. Your provider might utilize:
- HCG medical weight loss
- Hormone replacement therapy
- Diabetes education
- Nutritional therapy
- Personalized exercise programs
- Oral diabetes medications
- Insulin injections
An on-onsite nutritionist at Esperanza Hope Primary Care helps you plan diabetes or weight loss meal plans. Sometimes, hormone imbalance is the reason you’re unable to lose excess weight.
If this is the case, your practitioner uses hormone replacement therapy or a medically supervised HCG diet. It’s a very low-calorie diet combined with human chorionic gonadotropin hormone that controls your appetite, speeds up metabolism, and accelerates fat burning.
Don’t let diabetes progress to serious health complications when simple, noninvasive diabetes treatments are within reach. Schedule an appointment over the phone or online with Esperanza Hope Primary Care today.
