Is Hyperglycemia an Emergency?

[MMiz]

Is hyperglycemia an emergency if the associated symptoms are minor? Will a delay of treatment of an hour, two hours, a day, have any negative impact on the patient?

 

[SouthsideEMT]

one of the most major complications is the over-working of the kidneys. blood sugar that high will cause your kidneys to work extra hard regardless of the symptoms

 

[CAOX3]

With the wealth of information you gave us, I will say yes go to the hospital.

Is the sugar 250 or 900?

Type 1 or 2?

Ketones?

 

[MSDeltaFlt]

Is hyperglycemia an emergency if the associated symptoms are minor? Will a delay of treatment of an hour, two hours, a day, have any negative impact on the patient?

From what I could tell from a brief scimming over at the below ADA sight, is that the general trend is leaning towards "not necessarily". I've even had a Pediatric ER attending at a regional children's hospital tell me that even in DKA, pts don't die from hyperglycemia. They die from cerebral edema from excessive fluid administration to thin out the excess blood glucose levels.

The trend now is to treat hyperglycemia pretty much the same way we treat hypertension. You don't want to drop it like a stone. You want to trend it down.

Here are the links I found.

http://professional.diabetes.org/Adv_SearchResult.aspx?kwd=hyperglycemia&sr=global&ResType=ALL

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http://professional.diabetes.org/News_Display.aspx?TYP=9&CID=64372

 

[iamjeff171]

i imagine it is like a many other medical emergencies in ems...it depends. if hyperglycemia is the only issue, its probably not a haul butt to the ER type situation. though frequently the people we get called on have more than one pathology working on them. say for example, if they were already in the process of renal failure, i would think hyperglycemia could potentially be a fairly serious issue.

-Jeff

 

[Aidey]

There are too many variables to really answer the question with a simple yes or no. I think it depends on what else the patient has going on at the time.