How do I manage diabetes?
If you're wondering to yourself, how do I manage diabetes and what will happen if I don't? Understanding what diabetes is and how it affects your body gives us more incentive to have a healthy diet. The first step to take is to see your doctor and get an a1c test. This will help you to know where to go from there. Your doctor may have you start a program that will help you become aware of what your body is doing.
How do I manage diabetes with my doctor's advice?
1. Your doctor may design a new diet for you.
2. Show you how to monitor your glucose levels and may prescribe a cgm device.
3. Teach you how to stay within a good range of glucose levels all or most of the time.
4. Show you what your blood work means and how it effects you now and forever.
5. Your doctor may need to put you on medicine to help you regulate your glucose levels.
6. Help you understand the harm diabetes can cause you if you can't control it.
Introduction to healthy foods and meal preparation
Changing your diet doesn't have to be painful. There are many delicious, healthy foods that taste great and won't cause your blood sugar to spike. Fats and proteins are important for building muscle and bone. We will talk about those later. The area where you need to focus on overall is carbohydrates.
How you manage your carbohydrates will make the difference between success and failure. Success means a longer healthy life. Failure means sickness and decreased longevity.
Altering your diet is more than just eating better. It's changing old habits into new healthy habits.
Food shopping, meal preparation and experimenting with different combinations will help change habits forever.
It's important to replace bad carbs with good carbs and with a cgm you can see how your body reacts to those carbs. Everyone is a little different so definitely experiment to see how you react to different carbs and combinations of carbs with fats and proteins, because fats and proteins slow down the absorption of carbs so you don't get all the sugar at once.
White rice can be replaced with brown rice. Wheat pasta is better than normal pasta. Sweet potatoes are better than normal potatoes. Almonds and nuts are better than doughnuts. There are many great ideas in the recipe section. It's also really important to write down those results in a diabetes log book so you know how your body reacts to that certain combination of carbs. It's always helpful to visit the American Diabetes Association for healthy food learning. It has a lot of excellent info to help you.
You can learn to monitor your glucose with a cgm
A continuous glucose monitor can help you get real time results. For example, just a half hour more or less after eating, you will see how your glucose levels handle the food combination you just ate. The software can also be uploaded to your doctor to help with your diet and medicine plans.
You can learn how to stay within a healthy glucose level
Your doctor can help you understand what the numbers mean. Typically, you don't want your blood glucose level to exceed 180. Your doctor may feel differently about that number. When you exceed that number the slow damage to the pancreas starts to occur. You will see lows and highs in your glucose levels. This means the pancreas is struggling. Non-diabetic people don't usually have that kind of volatility in glucose levels.
How do I manage diabetes and other health issues?
Your doctor will keep track of your past blood work, but you can also do the same with a patient portal. You can see your progress or regression and this will let you and your doctor know in which direction to alter your course. This bloodwork will help keep an eye on your heart and kidney functions. The liver and pancreas work as a team to bring you energy, but they also rely on the rest of the organs as well.
Your doctor may need to prescribe medicine to help you control glucose levels
It's possible that diet alone won't be enough to help you control diabetes. You may need medicine. There are many types of drugs to help balance glucose levels.
Drugs such as metformin or insulin may be needed depending on the stages of diabetes and the condition of the pancreas.
Your doctor can help you become more aware of the long term effects of diabetes.
The long term effects of diabetes are terrifying and your doctor will know many people who have suffered this disease to the end of their days. Diabetes affects blood flow and causes it to stop flowing in certain areas. This ends in death, but it can cause a lot of suffering before that. This is what we want to avoid. It's very important to take control of your glucose levels so you can live a long, healthy life.