The skinny on diabetes and kidney failure

Are there any early warning signs that you can detect for early kidney damage other than a lab test?

Or does it progress silently, without any discomfort or symptoms till the late stages ?

I think this is the really sinister, evil thing about diabetes. It causes damage to alot of organs, but it does so very slowly that you don't notice or feel it. By the time the damage to organs is noticeable, it's already serious.

And then to top it off, even with very good glucose control, you can still suffer from various forms of diabetic complications, just from being "diabetic".

One really important point in the article to note is that blood pressure must be controlled to normal, if not lower, than normal levels because high blood pressure attacks the same organs as diabetes (heart, eyes, kidney) and this accelerates the symptoms more than twice (5-10 years versus 20).