April 27, 2005
Other Illnesses
Question from Kansas City, Kansas, USA:
I’ve always been prone to sinus infections, but, about a year and a half ago, I began getting them a bit more frequently (three times since January 2004) and they’ve seem to become rather resistant to antibiotics. I had an infection in October and it took three courses to knock it down, and now I have another case, one day before finishing a course of antibiotics for a urinary infection. It’s starting to concern me because I’m also asthmatic and, with each infection, it puts me out of commission for a good month.
I’ve been tested for various immunosupressive diseases like HIV and Hepatitis, but have come up negative, so I figured it might be my diabetes. My fasting blood sugar is often in the 105 to 125 mg/dl [5.8 to 6.9 mmol/L] range. Is it normal to have these infection problems with such low blood glucose levels or should I be more concerned?
Answer:
The degree of glucose elevation may not be high enough to give you all the problems. It sounds like you and your doctors should try to find out if there are anatomic abnormalities, whether these are set off by allergies so you can receive allergy shots, or whether there are prophylactic medications you can take to prevent these episodes.
JTL
