Support and Diabetes

 

Having diabetes comes with great responsibility. Support goes a long way when you are dealing with any a chronic disease. It makes all the difference to know someone has your back. It is important to have someone to talk to about all the stress that comes with a chronic disease.  

  

A person with diabetes should be doing the following:

 - Count carbohydrates with each meal and snack

 -Blood sugar tests (sometimes, several times daily)

- Recording blood sugar in the logbook

- Quarterly doctor appointments

-Diabetes educator/Dietitian appointments

-Blood tests at the doctors office

-Annual eye exam

-Almost daily exercise

-Daily foot care

-Take medications(either pills or injections)

-Financially pay for testing supplies, medications, appointments

All of this stuff adds up financially, physically, and mentally. The average cost for diabetes care is over $5,000 annually. That price climbs when complications are present.  It is easy to get "tired" of doing and paying for all these activities. The constant worry about blood sugar day and night gets old. It gets really old. I had one patient tell me "No thank you, I don't want diabetes anymore. You can take it back".
 Everyone gets tired of having diabetes at one point or another. In fact, I would even go as far as saying it is normal to get tired of diabetes. There are so many daily tasks to perform. Who wouldn't get tired of it.
I would be concerned if a patient told me they haven't been "sick of having diabetes".
I expect people to get tired of it especially in the first few months of diagnosis. It generally sets in later on every now and then.
The important thing is....You continue to do all of those very tasks you are tired of doing. I had one gentlemen (who was about 70 years old)tell me "I got diabetes 20 years ago. And I am pissed off. I 'm still pissed off about it but I do all the things I am supposed to be doing".
Make sure you have someone to talk to.  It could be anyone. A good friend, someone in your church, or a sibling.
An unknown author said "The difficulties in life are intended to make us better, not bitter". If you don't feel like you have someone to confide in, find someone right away.

Diabetes and your feet-prevention of amputations

When it comes to your feet you can't be too careful.  Back in the day, it seemed like almost a promise that if you had diabetes you would lose your feet to amputation. This isn't the case anymore. Let's discuss amputation prevention. But first we need to consider neuropathy.
 Neuropathy is damage to the nerves. This can be somewhat reversible but a person will always have permanent damage caused by elevated prolonged blood sugar. The damaged nerves"miss-fire" causing symptoms of numbness, tingling, or over-sensitivity to the hands and feet.

 Interestingly, the nerves in the outer part of the body (also called peripheral neuropathy) such as the hands and feet are the first to be affected by neuropathy because they are the furthermost from the heart, therefore getting less blood flow.

 Numbness anywhere in the body can present a problem with safety.  Losing feeling to the parts of the body means your protective function now lost.

When a person has numbness due to neuropathy they cannot feel a cut, sore, or other injury to the foot. If you cannot feel a problem, likely nothing is done. When nothing is done, an infection can creep in. Infection can get out of control more easily with diabetes because of of slower healing of cuts and sores, elevated blood sugar and slower blood flow to the feet.

 In the end, an infection, or gangrene gets out of control and amputation is required. So foot care really starts with simple things like:

* Check your feet daily for cuts and sores.

* Take care of cuts and sores consistently until completely healed

* Have your feet checked by your health care provider

* Wear proper shoes--both indoors/outdoors
* Wear properly fitting shoes and socks

* As always...good blood sugar control

You cannot be too careful when it comes your feet