Diabetes symptoms are unique to every person who has it. They vary depending on the type of diabetes you have (type 1 or type 2) and your blood sugar levels. Some people have no symptoms or very mild symptoms early on, but regular health checks can catch diabetes early, whether you have symptoms or not.
Read on to learn about symptoms for each common type, possible early warning signs, unique symptoms in women and children, and when to get checked.
Three key takeaways
Diabetes symptoms can develop gradually or appear suddenly.
Symptoms vary by diabetes type (type 1 or type 2), age, sex, and blood sugar level.
Early detection of diabetes can help a doctor diagnose you and start giving you the support you need to control it.
What are the common symptoms of diabetes?
People with diabetes might have the following symptoms:
Needing to urinate a lot, including at night
Extreme thirst
Feeling hungrier than usual
Feeling very tired
Unwanted or unexplained weight changes (more common in type 1 diabetes but can occur in type 2 if blood sugar is very high).
Blurred vision
Slow-healing wounds and cuts
Itchy genitals, or a fungal infection called thrush
The most common symptoms are feeling thirsty, urinating often, fatigue, and unintended weight loss.
Both adults and children can get these symptoms. However, people with type 1 diabetes experience some of these more often than those with type 2, and they’re more common during childhood. These symptoms also come on much faster for people with type 1 diabetes.
Early signs of diabetes to be aware of
The earliest warning signs of diabetes are known as the “Four Ts,” because they often include:
Thirst: Feeling very thirsty.
Tiredness: Feeling sleepier than you usually do.
Toilet: Needing to wee often, bedwetting in young children, or heavier nappies in babies.
Thinner: Losing weight without meaning to.
These signs are especially common in type 1 diabetes but can appear in type 2 when blood sugar becomes very high.
Diabetes symptoms can be very mild and slow to develop, and you might not notice any symptoms at all. This can mean they're easy to miss. In fact, 6 out of 10 people don’t have any symptoms when they get a type 2 diabetes diagnosis.
People might mistake mild or on-and-off symptoms for normal parts of their lives. For example, it’s easy to blame a busy lifestyle for tiredness or ageing for the more common symptoms.
Symptoms of type 2 diabetes
Type 2 diabetes symptoms in adults and children often develop gradually but might include:
Fatigue
urinating more often than usual
Constant thirst
Unintended weight loss
Less often, blurred vision, slow-healing wounds, and itchy genitals
You may not even have obvious symptoms, and doctors usually find type 2 diabetes during a check-up rather than because a patient feels unwell.
This is because type 2 diabetes’ main effect is high blood sugar. Your body starts responding less to a chemical messenger called insulin. When it works well, insulin lets cells use sugar from the blood, helping to control levels. However, if insulin starts taking less sugar out of the blood, you have what’s known as insulin resistance.
High blood sugar only causes noticeable symptoms when it’s very high. Insulin resistance takes time to push your long-term blood sugar above an unsafe level. This partly explains why symptoms can take so long to become clear.
Symptoms of type 1 diabetes
The most common type 1 diabetes symptoms are the same as those of type 2 diabetes. However, they come on much quicker, within days or weeks, and usually start in childhood or as young adults. This is different from type 2 diabetes, which is more common in older adults.
Children might start wetting the bed, or babies might have heavier nappies. Other symptoms include:
Blurry vision
Sweet or fruity-smelling breath that might resemble nail varnish remover or pear drop sweets
Slow-healing cuts and wounds
Often getting infections that stick around for a long time, including nappy rash and thrush
Symptoms might quickly get more severe during a medical emergency called diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). When insulin is lacking, the body breaks down fat for energy, producing ketones, which accumulate in the blood. This makes your blood more acidic, which can be extremely harmful.
If type 1 diabetes symptoms get worse for you or your child and you have the following DKA symptoms, go to your nearest A&E:
Stomach pain
Diarrhoea
Feeling or being sick
Breathing quickly and heavily
Sleepiness
Confusion
DKA can be life-threatening, but treatment works as long as you get help.
Prediabetes symptoms
Prediabetes often has no symptoms. If you’ve started to notice any symptoms, you’ve probably already got type 2 diabetes.
If a doctor says you have prediabetes, it means they’ve tested your blood sugar and it’s slightly higher than normal. This is often the only sign.
This makes getting regular blood sugar tests and understanding your risks vital, especially if you’re in an at-risk group for type 2 diabetes. Getting tested can help you and your GP reverse prediabetes. Those at risk of type 2 diabetes might include:
People with overweight or obesity
Those with close family members who have type 2 diabetes
People of Black African, Afro-Caribbean, or South Asian descent
People who’ve had high blood pressure
Using a tool like the Diabetes UK Risk Calculator can help you understand whether you have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes than other people.
Gestational diabetes symptoms
Gestational diabetes, or diabetes that happens to some women during pregnancy, doesn’t often cause symptoms. If their blood sugar gets too high, they might get the standard symptoms of diabetes. But some of these, like urinating often and tiredness, are also effects of pregnancy.
Unlike other types, gestational diabetes (along with any possible symptoms) gets better after giving birth. However, this type of diabetes can increase your risk of type 2 diabetes later on.
Gestational diabetes is very manageable with lifestyle changes to control blood sugar. Your pregnancy care team will ask you questions between weeks 8 and 12 of pregnancy to see if you’re at risk.
While gestational diabetes can slightly increase the risk of pregnancy complications, miscarriage, and stillbirth, managing it well can lead to a completely safe pregnancy and a healthy baby. If you’re pregnant, speak to a doctor about your next steps to rule out gestational diabetes.
Diabetes symptoms in women
Women with diabetes might experience the following symptoms as well as the standard diabetes symptoms:
A drop in sex drive
Getting less pleasure from sex
Pain while having sex
A dry vagina
Less ability to experience orgasm
If a woman has diabetes, then goes through perimenopause, the lower levels of sex hormones like oestrogen and progesterone can lead to quick blood sugar changes. This can make symptoms more likely, as diabetes may become harder to control.
Bacteria also feed on sugar, and you get rid of blood sugar in the urine. This can make infections more likely where urine leaves your body, increasing your risk of thrush and urinary tract infections (UTIs) if you have diabetes.
These infections can cause itchiness and pain around the vagina’s entrance, as well as stinging urine, painful sex, and white, thick discharge.
Diabetes symptoms in men
In men with diabetes, blood vessel and nerve damage caused by high blood sugar can make getting or keeping an erection difficult. This is known as erectile dysfunction and is especially common in men with diabetes who also smoke.
Research on people with long-term kidney disease has also found that skin tags (soft, often harmless growths, the same colour as your skin) are more common in men than women and happen more often in those with diabetes than those without, although more research is needed.
Diabetes symptoms in children and young people
Diabetes symptoms in children and young people include:
Passing a lot of urine. They may go to the toilet a lot, wet the bed where they didn’t before, or have heavier nappies due to having more urine in them.
Intense thirst. A child might ask for more drinks, drink very quickly, or might seem to be drinking more.
Tiredness: They might have less energy, play less often, or have less energy for sports or running around.
Weight loss. They might look thinner than normal.
In children with type 1 diabetes, these symptoms may come on in days or weeks. Those with type 2 diabetes might show a more gradual change in energy, weight, toilet habits, and behaviours. Most children with diabetes have type 1.
A child might not be able to explain how they feel, so keep an eye out for these behaviour changes.
Eye symptoms linked to diabetes
When people with eye complications of diabetes, known as diabetic retinopathy, have symptoms, they may include worsening eyesight (especially in low light), blurry vision, and seeing dots and lines. These symptoms may get worse over time, leading to vision loss. They can affect one eye or both.
However, diabetic retinopathy doesn’t usually cause symptoms early on. An eye doctor usually detects early-stage diabetic retinopathy during a diabetic eye screening. It often takes several years to get worse, but getting treatment can prevent this.
Diabetic retinopathy happens when high blood sugar damages the tiny blood vessels at the back of your eye. If you control your diabetes well, avoid smoking, and manage your blood pressure and cholesterol, you can reduce your risk of diabetic eye problems.
Be sure to go to all of your diabetic eye screenings so you can catch and treat any diabetes-related eye issues as soon as possible.
Nerve-related symptoms and diabetic neuropathy
Constantly raised blood sugar can damage nerves, leading to different symptoms depending on which nerves are affected. Doctors call this diabetic neuropathy. The most common type is peripheral neuropathy. This affects nerves outside the brain and spinal cord that lead to the feet and hands.
Diabetic nerve damage can cause different feelings in the arms and legs. Common symptoms include
Tingling
Numbness
Being less able to feel pain and temperature changes, meaning you might not notice cuts, wounds, burns and other injuries, often leading to foot ulcers
Reduced reflexes
Shooting or burning pains, especially at night
Muscle weakness, twitching, and cramps
Changes to how your body works, like bladder leakage, erectile dysfunction, diarrhoea, or constipation
Early symptoms of diabetic nerve damage often include pain, tingling, feeling less in the feet, balance issues, weakness, and foot wounds or ulcers that aren’t healing. Other symptoms may develop later. Nerve damage and reduced sensation increase the risk of unnoticed injuries and foot ulcers, which can become serious if not treated early.
With treatment, neuropathy can get better. But some people may get permanent nerve damage, or it can get worse over time. Treatment often helps symptoms feel better but can’t reverse the nerve damage. Controlling blood sugar with physical activity and a healthy diet can prevent diabetic neuropathy.
Low blood sugar symptoms
People who take insulin to treat diabetes may get blood sugar crashes known as hypos, which often cause the following symptoms:
Hunger
Dizziness
Anxiety
Irritability
Sweating
Shaking
Tingling lips
An irregular heartbeat
Tiredness
Weakness
Confusion
Vision changes
In severe cases, seizures, fits, or passing out
Hypos are a common problem in people with type 1 diabetes.One report found that over one in four people with type 1 diabetes have 10 or more hypo episodes each month. They can occur if you take too much insulin, miss or delay a meal, exercising without reducing insulin, or eat too few carbs during a meal, among other triggers.
They feel different from high blood sugar symptoms. Those tend to happen after a long period of high blood sugar, but one hypo episode can feel scary and overwhelming. Monitoring blood glucose and taking and adjusting insulin as instructed can help steady your blood sugar and avoid hypos.
When should you get checked for diabetes symptoms?
If you or your child has symptoms that do not go away, get worse, or appear suddenly, it is important to speak to your GP as soon as possible. This is especially important if symptoms develop quickly or you are concerned about a high risk of diabetes.
A GP can arrange blood sugar tests, which are the only way to confirm a diabetes diagnosis. Having one or two symptoms does not automatically mean you have diabetes, but they should always be checked.
People at higher risk of diabetes who also have symptoms should be particularly cautious. This includes older adults, people with overweight or obesity, and those from Afro-Caribbean, Black African, or South Asian backgrounds.
If you do not already have diabetes and are aged 40 to 74 years, you are eligible for a free NHS Health Check. This can identify whether you are at risk of diabetes and outline the next steps. You may receive an invite from your local council every 5 years. If not, you can contact your GP surgery to arrange one.
“The most important thing to remember about diabetes symptoms is this: don't wait and see if they go away on their own. It's always better to get checked and find out it's nothing serious than to leave diabetes undiagnosed.
“Early detection makes a huge difference - catching diabetes early means you can start managing it straight away, before it has chance to affect other parts of your body like your eyes, kidneys, or nerves
“Getting a diagnosis might feel scary, but it actually puts you back in control because you can start doing something about it. And remember, a quick blood test can give you peace of mind or get you the support you need.”
Ian Budd, Prescribing Pharmacist at C4U
Frequently asked questions about diabetes symptoms
Can diabetes symptoms come and go?
As type 2 diabetes symptoms come on gradually, it may feel like they come and go. Everyone experiences diabetes differently.
Can you have diabetes without symptoms?
Many people have diabetes without symptoms, especially in its early stages.
How quickly do diabetes symptoms develop?
People with type 1 diabetes often find that symptoms develop in days or weeks. Type 2 diabetes symptoms, on the other hand, are much more gradual. They can take years to show, if they even do develop.
Are diabetes symptoms the same for everyone?
No. Everyone’s journey through diabetes is unique. Your GP will tailor your treatments to the way your body works, how you control your blood sugar, and how you respond to symptom management.
Do diabetes symptoms always mean diabetes?
No. Diabetes symptoms can feel like lots of other health problems, menopause, or pregnancy.
Should I be concerned if I only have one symptom?
No. Some people only have one symptom, others have several. The important thing is to get screened and tested to make sure your blood sugar is at a safe level.
Chemist 4 U uses cookies (and other techniques) to enhance your shopping experience.
Read more about our cookie policy, terms and conditions and privacy statement. By continuing on this site and accepting our cookies you agree to the collection of information on this basis by us and by third parties on the platform as well as direct email marketing. Please customise your cookie settings below.
Find out more about our data policies.
