How to be a smart diabetic

By The Montana Standard News Services - 11/11/2008

1. Doctors have to call diabetes a disease. You don't. It's a physical condition — one you can control. No pity parties if you can read the three previous sentences. Even though there's no cure for it, this is a diagnosis you can do something about. If you can do for yourself, be proactive and positive.

2. It's OK — in fact, it's vital — to turn your fingertips into pincushions. You must test your blood sugar at least seven times a day (before every meal, two hours after and at bedtime). More is better. Use every type of reminder you can think of: sticky notes, an oven timer, an alarm clock, e-mail, a cell phone.

3. Tell people you spend time with what your signs of a dangerously low or high blood sugar are and how, if they notice, they can help you. Be sure to listen when people share their own lists of what they see in you that puts them on alert. A good friend says my pupils dilate when my blood sugar drops. 4. Embrace progress, but be cautious. If you are in the midst of a crisis at home or at work, delay switching to a new diabetes- management routine, such as changing the way you take insulin, until you can focus your attention on your new daily steps.

5. Hang on to your old tools and remember how to use them. When the FDA recalled my second insulin pump in 1989, the registered letter I received said to "seek alternative insulin therapy immediately." The same holds for meters. You always need a Plan B.

6. Don't generalize about how a product or a category of products affects your sugar. I have no problem with Splenda baked into food. But drinking water sweetened with it immediately spikes my sugar.

7. Go for the real stuff. Some foods lower in fat, sugar and sodium are fine, but many aren't. Skip them.

8. Travel with an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, remembering that some supplies you use to manage your diabetes, such as those that are disposable for an insulin pump, come from a single source or are just items that are hard to find. Ship yourself a care package a week ahead.

9. Don't touch car keys without testing your sugar, treating it if necessary and allowing time for the treatment to work.

10. Make eye contact and immediately thank anyone who takes the time to alert you to test your sugar.

——— (c) 2008, The Dallas Morning News.

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