National Diabetes Month: Living With Diabetes Tips

Your patient's biggest health care advocate is them.

Managing their health can be a daily challenge, let alone living with diabetes.

There are many variables for your patients to keep in mind as they manage diabetes day-to-day: Food intake, daily exercise, stress level, and even general health. And, maintaining blood sugar levels in the desired range is a fine balancing act with constant monitoring.

From sugar levels to health risks, here are four tips to share with your patients to help them make living with diabetes a bit more manageable.

Monitoring Sugar Levels

According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), the majority of the food you eat is broken down into sugar and then releases into your bloodstream as your body’s source of energy.1 If blood sugar is too high, over time, you can have serious long-term health issues.2 If blood sugar levels are too low, then other health risks can occur like headache, shakey, fainting, and other issues.3

It’s important to remind your patients to monitor their sugar levels to help prevent serious health complications.

Protecting Feet

Over time, nerve damage can occur and affect your patient's ability to feel pain, heat or cold. If they lose sensation in the feet, they may not feel a blister, skin irritation, open wound or too hot or cold water. Poor circulation, another common diabetic complication, along with minor foot issues, can lead to major foot infection or other foot health complications if not treated early.4 It’s important to have your patients check their feet daily, wear appropriate diabetic footwear, and keep their feet clean.

Maintain Healthy Weight and Stay Active

Physical activity is important to maintain when living with diabetes—and it’s not as hard to stay active as one may think. According to the CDC, getting in about 150 minutes of moderate activity per week can help prevent health issues.5

Examples of activities:

Walking/hiking
Biking
Swimming
Dancing
Team sports
Gardening
Moving the lawn

Remind your patients to try to get about 20 to 25 minutes of activity per day as well as full-body exercise at least twice a week.5

When not exercising, remind your patients to wear cotton socks and athletic shoes that fit well and are comfortable. After the activity, remind them to check their blood sugar levels as well as their feet to make sure they don’t have any sores. This will help them prevent serious complications down the road.

See Your Patients Regularly

Over time, diabetes can affect any part of the body. However, if your patient takes care of their health and sees you regularly, you can help them prevent or delay health complications that are associated with diabetes. From checking sugar levels and eating healthy to exercise and doctor visits, patients can help prevent high blood pressure, cholesterol issues, heart disease, kidney issues, or other health-related complications.6 So, make sure they stay on track of their appointments and speak to you if they have anything minor come up.

Living with diabetes is a change in daily habits and is manageable. Remember, the biggest advocate for your patient's health is them, so you want to educate them to stay on top of it.

Shop for footwear to help keep feet healthy.

The contents of this blog were independently prepared, and are for informational purposes only. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily indicative of the views of any other party. Individual results may vary depending on a variety of patient-specific attributes and related factors.

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