Sunday, November 4, 2007

Treatment Of Diabetes



Whichever sort of diabetes you have it is most important that you come to terms with it and take responsibility for your own day to day management. The more you can understand the condition and how it effects you, the better you will be able to control it and prevent complications.
A diet which does not include sugary food or drinks is important for both types of diabetes.
Type 1 Diabetes requires the use of regular insulin injections. This will need to be taught to you but most people are well able to manage this for themselves after a very short time. You will develop an understanding of the different doses needed when more activity takes place or in situations when you are unable to eat eg when vomiting.
Type 2 Diabetes can often be controlled by attention to diet alone. It is also most important to get your weight down to a reasonable level. It is likely that your doctor will set a target weight with you. Your doctor may well initially monitor your blood sugar while you adopt this approach. If, however, your initial blood sugar is too high or you do not show a response to diet alone, then you will be started on medication. This usually involves one or more tablets a day.
Diabetes can adversely affect the blood vessels, the eyes, the heart, the nervous system, and the kidneys, but this usually appears to follow many years of poor blood sugar control. Thus although you may not have many symptoms from your diabetes you should try to maintain the best possible control of your blood sugar and attend your doctor regularly to monitor progress.
If you smoke, stop. As mentioned above, diabetes can adversely affect the blood vessels, so can smoking.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

a question
if one gets a diarrhoea bug the usual method is to stop eating for a day
then light food the next
then usual the 3rd day
how would you as a diabetic cope with a diarrhoea bug???
this is something I wonder about with Mr W - hes type 1