Proper Diabetes Education and Care Management

     The time has come again.. summer has come to an end and the school year has officially begun.  Fortunately for me, I enjoy school and learning. I often try to incorporate my day to day life with my schooling, as it ties everything together and makes things more interesting for me. For my first blog post as a Health Management and Policy student I have decided to write about Diabetes care and management.
     I am a college student living with Type 1 Diabetes and I tend to be fairly open about the subject. I joined the College Diabetes Network (CDN) at UNH last year which is a new club on campus.  The club is a mixed group of students with Type 1 Diabetes and nutrition students, however, anyone is welcome. As this club became acclimated to UNH and the students I realized there are so many people who know so little about Diabetes. Even senior nutrition students didn't know much about the reality of the disease. When everything is taught out of a book, it is much harder to grasp and understand. I firmly believe that hands on experience, face-to-face conversations, and real life lessons are paramount.
      I had always wanted to work with children with Diabetes and or become a nurse that specialized in endocrinology. However, I fell in to the major Health Management and Policy and I could not be happier. I have begun to learn just how important it is to promote and live a healthy life. Living with diabetes is not easy and I would like to help teach people about living with the disease and help young children who are newly diagnosed as well. The CDN club has begun working out a plan to go to local hospitals and talk with newly diagnosed diabetics. I suggested this idea to the club and everyone agreed that this would have a positive impact on newly diagnosed diabetics in the hospital. I think it would be helpful to these newly diagnosed patients to hear about the disease, to learn the good and the bad, to hear that living with the disease is going to be ok, and sit and talk with other people, students for example, who live with the disease first hand and have been doing so for years.
     In addition to this, we have worked with nutrition students about the truths and the myths of diabetes. As well as incorporated and discussed some real life scenarios of taking care of diabetes on a day to day basis. First, to manage your diabetes well you must take your blood sugar 3-6 times a day and keep it in range (80-160). Diabetics with type 1 also must count carbs, do calculations for proper insulin amounts, and take insulin injections before eating! There is also the option of having an insulin pump deliver insulin through a catheter. Type 1 Diabetics can eat what they want as long as they are counting carbs and taking insulin. These are all very basic concepts  that diabetics must follow in order to keep their blood sugar in range. When someone's blood sugar gets to high or to low the body will react poorly and  symptoms and complications will begin to occur.  When one's blood sugar is too high, they must take insulin and when it is too low they need food..  most likely sugar!! Not properly caring for your diabetes by avoiding checking your blood sugar and avoiding taking insulin can lead to serious health complications like Ketoacidosis which can then lead to greater problems like amputations. Hundreds of people decide to void the fact they are living with this disease and this hinders their health in the long run. Being aware of the reality of the disease and managing it properly is serious and key to staying healthy. Those who are in danger of getting, or already have Type 2 Diabetes from obesity should manage it well and take precautionary measures so they do not become more severe. Living with this disease is much easier to do when people around you are aware of how to care for diabetes or live with the disease themselves.  Teaching other diabetics to live and appropriately manage the disease is something I enjoy doing and I would love to educate others on the disease as well.
     There is one last thing you should know.. Us diabetics get multiple comments per day and they can become very repetitive, annoying, and frustrating at the wrong time. " Is that a pager?", "Why do you have an MP3 player on your hip?", " Are you wearing a microphone?", " I don't know how you do it, I couldn't", and "You can't eat that!" are just a few you should try to avoid. 
     I would be happy to answer any questions and talk more in depth with anyone about the disease in general and how to manage and care for diabetes. Knowledge is power.