Bambi Judging from the practical experience of clinical nursing, the nursing symptoms related to metabolic syndrome are actually a group of "little problems that come together". The core ones are the bloated waist and abdomen caused by abdominal obesity, easy breathing after exercise, dizziness, head fullness, and temple throbbing pain caused by blood pressure fluctuations. Abnormal sugar metabolism causes dry mouth, polydipsia, and polyuria, as well as lipid metabolism disorders that cause fatigue, drowsiness after meals, and a sinking feeling in limbs. Many patients are also accompanied by severe snoring during sleep, repeated gout attacks, and xantholipomas on the eyelids or skin.
The 42-year-old freight driver I was in charge of last week, Brother Zhang, is a typical example. He has been running long distances for almost ten years. His three meals include high-oil box lunches and ice carbonated drinks from the service area. His waistline is almost 100cm at a height of 1.75 meters. Half a month before coming to the doctor, he always felt that his head was cloudy when driving late at night. My body was numb, and my throat still felt dry after drinking two large bottles of mineral water. I had to wake up three or four times a night. At first, I thought it was due to staying up late. The physical examination showed that the systolic blood pressure was 152mmHg, the fasting blood sugar was 6.9mmol/L, and the triglycerides were twice the normal value. It was a sign of metabolic syndrome.
Many people don't take these minor symptoms seriously when they first discover them, thinking they are "sub-healthy" and just need to rest for two days. However, we have seen many cases where minor symptoms turn into emergencies. There used to be a 38-year-old business executive who only occasionally felt dizzy. He always said he was too busy to measure his blood pressure and adjust his diet. As a result, during a project meeting, his vision suddenly went dark and his blood pressure soared to 188/102mmHg. He had already suffered from transient insufficient blood supply to the brain, which was caused by metabolic syndrome that had not been intervened for a long time.
Oh, by the way, there are still differences in the industry on whether non-specific symptoms such as "long-term fatigue and poor sleep quality" should be included in the routine nursing assessment of metabolic syndrome. Many scholars doing basic research feel that these symptoms are too poorly directed. Staying up late, catching a cold, and even emotional anxiety may occur. Using them as evaluation indicators is prone to misjudgment. However, our front-line nurses feel that these "uncharacteristic" symptoms are the earliest warning. Signal, almost 60% of the patients I have come into contact with have experienced unexplained tiredness two or three months before abnormal metabolic indicators were detected. They just want to paralyze when they get home from get off work. They used to be able to easily climb stairs but now they are gasping for breath after climbing two floors. The sound of snoring is getting louder and louder, and even family members can hear breathless pauses in the middle, which is sleep apnea. These symptoms often appear several months earlier than abnormalities in blood tests and blood pressure indicators.
Don’t think that these problems are exclusive to middle-aged and elderly people. Last month, I picked up a 19-year-old sophomore. He usually only eats milk tea and fried chicken and never eats dinner in the cafeteria. He weighs almost 200 pounds. He gets out of breath after running two steps in physical education class. During the physical examination, his blood pressure and triglycerides were found. They were all on the high side, but I didn't care about it, saying that young people have a fast metabolism and can lose weight after just two meals. However, within half a month, I was hospitalized due to an acute attack of gout and my feet hurt so much that I couldn't walk. This is a related problem caused by metabolic syndrome not being intervened in time and the uric acid rising.
In fact, our focus on these scattered symptoms in nursing care is essentially to help everyone nip the problem in the bud. Don't wait for minor problems to turn into major life-threatening problems such as myocardial infarction, cerebral infarction, and renal failure before we think about intervention. Then it is really too late.
