Diabetes Management Part 1

Since diabetes management is such a loaded topic, we broke things up into 2 parts. This month, we’ll be go over risk factors for diabetes, signs/symptoms, getting a proper diagnosis, and the process of self-monitoring glucose (blood sugars) at home. Our special guest, Margarette Edouard, is a Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) & Registered Dietitian (RD) and will be sharing all of her expertise with us. Next month, we’ll go into potential complications of diabetes, how to cope, medication use, & lifestyle changes to better manage the condition. Below is a brief overview of the topics discussed! 

Diabetes Care & Management

• In our previous episode, we spoke about things you can do to lower your risk for developing type 2 diabetes, and we got so much positive feedback from all of you.
• We got tons of emails asking for a part 2, and so we’re back and this time around we have a special guest with us!
• Margarette Edouard is a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator. She has many years of experience helping people manage their diabetes, and she also happens to be my amazing co-worker
• She’ll be joining us today and sharing all her valuable insight on diabetes care & management

What is diabetes?

• Diabetes is a group of diseases that result in elevated blood glucose aka high blood sugars

Risk factors for DM:

• Family history
• Environmental factors
• Overweight/obesity
• Insulin resistance- which means that your cells are not responding to properly to insulin
• Race & ethnicity (higher prevalence of type 2 in people of color)
• Having a history of gestational diabetes
• Having hypertension 
• Leading a sedentary lifestyle

Early detection & treatment of DM is extremely important. There are people that don’t want to know because they’re fearful. But knowing, and then making necessary lifestyle changes, will reduce your risk for developing diabetes-related complications.

Self-monitoring: 

So let’s say you do have a confirmed diagnosis of diabetes. Your doctor may recommend that you start self-monitoring your sugars at home, especially if tests show that your sugars are uncontrolled. This involves getting a glucometer, which is a small machine that measures your blood sugars. You’ll prick yourself with a fine needle, and start recording your readings so you can review them with the doc.

• Self-monitoring at home is so important because this way you have a better idea of how different foods and activities affect your blood sugars.
• It’s important that you bring your logs and meters to doctors’ visits, because then you and the medical team and come up with a plan based on how your values are.
• It could be that you’re eating healthfully, you’re active, and that as a result, and your values have dropped significantly.
• In some cases, the doc may decrease the dose of your medication if you’re managing well with lifestyle changes.
• Now, there are patients that do all of this and their sugars still remain high.
• If that’s the case, the medication regimen may also have to get adjusted.