Here are just three of the many reasons why it is important to learn as much as you can about caring for your diabetes.
FIRST, SAFETY.
Everyone with diabetes must make daily and sometimes emergency self-care decisions. Knowing about your diet, exercise, foot care, and sometimes diabetes pills and insulin can help you to make wise decisions that will keep you feeling good each day.
SECOND, MOTIVATION.
Sometimes people avoid learning about diabetes because not knowing makes it easier to believe that their diabetes is not serious. Diabetes is always serious. Your long-term health depends on the decisions you make each day. Knowing that you are doing all you can to have a healthy future can keep you going when times are tough.
THIRD, TEAM CARE.
Taking care of your diabetes is a team effort. In addition to yourself, your health care team may include your family, doctors, nurses, dietitians, pharmacists, psychologists, ophthalmologists, social workers, foot and exercise specialists, and others. The professionals on your health care team have knowledge and skills to help treat diabetes. However, you are the expert on yourself and what will work for you. When you work as a team, you can combine what you know about yourself with what your health care team knows about diabetes and create a plan that will work. Here are some tips to help you on your way to better diabetes control.
- Take your medicine.
- Do appropriate amounts of exercise.
- Maintain and adapt your management of your illness to mesh with the real world.
- Manage the anger, fear, frustration and depression that comes with having an uncertain future until you fully understand.
- Learn to solve your own problems — your health care team will give you the skills — use them to better manage your diabetes.
- Set realistic goals for yourself and aim for continual improvement.
- Be sure you get feed back from your health care team on your progress.
You must work with your health care providers as a partner to get the best possible results given your resources. You must take your health to the next level and become a producer of health.
You will need education for this role. With the information age, we now know more but understand less. Walgreens Diabetes & You magazine aims to inform you about things to think about as you pursue an intimate health plan that is yours alone.
