Simple Steps for Prevention

Your diabetes doesn’t have to be a weight hanging around your neck. You can save hundreds of dollars per year off your car insurance simply by following these tips.

1. Always check your glucose level before you hit the road.
2. Bring plenty of snacks with you in your vehicle just in case you start to feel weak and shaky while driving.
3. If you feel like you’re not able to drive safely, always pull over, eat something and give yourself plenty of time before heading onto your destination.
4. Carry a cell phone with you at all times that’s pre-programmed with emergency numbers just in case you need emergency help quickly.
5. Get your eyes checked every six months and monitor your blood pressure on a regular basis.

You Don’t Have To Give Up On Driving

By following the simple steps in this article you won’t have to give up on your driving privileges. Driving while having diabetes is something that millions of people do successfully every single day and you can too.

Any individual with diabetics interested in losing weight and keeping their body healthy should consider their task on multiple levels. Certainly, there is the technical and mechanical aspect of performing the correct exercises, eating the right foods, and training your body in the most beneficial and satisfying ways, but there is also the less considered aspect of mental preparation and sound spiritual framework.

There is a wide body of magazine and health journal literature that focuses on preparing an athlete or an individual for the rigors of a training regimen by seemingly trying to ‘cure’ them of the difficulties and the failures they will no doubt face, but this is not the right way to train. Any individual currently living with diabetes knows that there is more to life than simply succeeding and doing well. Like battling the disease itself, battling a workout routine and a new diet will be filled with achievements as well as failures and setbacks; the key is to continue moving forward. Ultimately, it is just your weight, but the success and self-confidence that you can earn through working out and eating right can be carried over to the rest of your life and into your fight against diabetes.

First, you should consider the technical and mechanical aspects of choosing the right exercise regime and the right diet for yourself. In this writer’s opinion, the best workout and meal-plan is the one that satisfies you, challenges you, and, more often than not, makes you glad that you are doing what you are doing. There are a few general guidelines that you should follow. In choosing a workout routine, try to do at least as much cardiovascular exercise as you do strength training. If you lift weights two times a week, go for a jog two days as well. When it comes to diet, focus less on the type of food you are eating (it seems like the ‘right food’ changes weekly, anyway) and instead try to control the amount of food that you eat. This is a surprisingly difficult thing to do, but if you can cut down your meal size by just a small amount each day, after several (2-9) weeks you should be able to comfortably eat the FDA recommended caloric intake per day.

Anyone not training to be a professional athlete should not expect themselves to be in perfect condition at all times, nor should they expect that their workouts constantly be an exhausting challenge. Likewise, you should not expect to come away from the gym with a bright smile on your face every time you workout. Certainly, working-out can feel like a great thing to do, but it is not the case that if you leave the gym feeling tired and sore, and not beaming, that you need to immediately change your routine.

If you are retired or have parents that are retired and are diabetic you may want to look into some of the assisted living options out there today.  Many of these communities will have gyms located within the community that you or your loved ones can go to and get the much needed exercise to help fight your diabetes.

As a diabetic, you know that the challenges of life do not come with a ‘satisfaction-guaranteed’ sticker- there are some obstacles that take a lot of you, and there is rarely ever an expectation of complete success. But if you keep your eyes on the long-term goal of health success, you should be able to weather any setback that comes your way.

Most children tend to have type I diabetes, previously known as juvenile diabetes, although children are increasingly being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes as well. Type I diabetes occurs when the pancreas does not work and does not produce any insulin. Insulin is needed to help break down sugars (glucose) in our body to help it work efficiently. When this breakdown of sugars does not happen, as in the case of type I diabetes, the sugar stays in the blood stream.

Because insulin is important in breaking down sugars in the body to use for energy, insulin has to be taken to control the illness. Therefore type I diabetes is also called insulin-dependent diabetes. Exercise and diet are also important helping to control this type of diabetes. Caring for the child with diabetes means that you will need to recognize the signs of the illness, as well as any resulting reactions that can occur. The main signs of pediatric diabetes are:

Breath smelling like fruit

Constant hunger

Pulse beating faster than normal

Headaches

Being weak and dizzy

Difficulty concentrating

Vision becoming foggy

Skin tending to be cold and moist

Experiencing seizures

Next, you should be able to identify when the child is in crisis, suffering either a hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic episode, and you should know what to do help in either case. Hyperglycemia occurs when the sugar levels are too high. Rising sugar levels are generally a result of eating too much, not taking the correct amount of insulin, or not exercising enough. When a child is hyperglycemic, treatment by medical professionals is needed. A child suffering from high blood sugar will complain of the following:

Weakness

Extreme thirst

Needing to urinate frequently

Not seeing clearly

Not being hungry

With hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), the symptoms vary from child to child, but some of the typical signs include:

Clumsiness

Sudden mood changes

Sweating

Hunger

Seeming confused

Trembling

Headache

Tingling feeling around the mouth

The first course of action is to increase the child’s sugar intake by giving them something sweet to drink, such as regular soda, fruit juice or glucose tablets. Once the child is feeling better, you should give them something more solid to eat. If the child is too weak to swallow or is unconscious, administer the recommended dosage of glucagon and call for immediate medical assistance. Glucagon is a medication given by injection to rapidly increase the level of glucose in the blood. It is normally the first course of treatment in severe hypoglycemia.

Diet is a major part of keeping the diabetic child healthy. The caregiver has the responsibility to ensure that the child eats what is recommended. It is also important to talk with the child and let them know that they will get really sick if they eat too many sweets or other foods that can pose a risk. It is also important to let others, such as teachers, know that a diabetic child may need to snack to boost their sugar and energy levels. The child with diabetes must also have regular meals.

Exercise is important as well, and there is no reason why the diabetic child cannot participate in all regular physical activity. Exercise helps to control blood sugar levels. However, suffering from pediatric diabetes should not exert themselves before meal time. Also, they will need to have a snack, such as juice, crackers or a fruit, handy, as they will need to replace sugar lost during physical activity.

Most importantly, children should be taught how to test their blood sugar levels during the course of the day, once they are able to do soon their own. This is important so that they can take insulin or eat something as needed.

Caring for the diabetic child, while calling for more vigilance in terms of their eating habits can be stress free once you and others taking care of the child know what to do and follow the rules. Also, make sure that emergency numbers are close at hand and that the child learns how to recognize symptoms of potential trouble and take corrective actions.

Lots of people have doubts about their blood sugar levels.
Some of the questions that people have asked me are:
•What should my blood sugar level be most of the time?
•How often should I test my blood sugar levels?
•What is the HbA1C blood sugar test and how often should I test that?
•Is there any particular time of the day that I should test my blood sugar levels?
•Is there anything else that I should know about blood sugar testing?

My answer to them is, “Learn to measure your blood sugar levels correctly”
How do you do that?
First buy a glucometer.
Secondly, after you have a glucose meter. You need to learn how to use it correctly. It is a machine and if used wrongly, it will give wrong results. In my experience what you should do is read the booklet that came with the machine. Next take the glucometer along with you for your next appointment and ask your doctor to show you how to use it. After that you show the doctor how you check you blood sugar levels and ask if you are doing it correctly. If you are making any mistakes your doctor can correct you.

The importance of an HbA1C test
Now know how to check your sugar levels correctly.
Let me tell you the basics regarding the HbA1c blood test.

How often should this test be done?
This test is usually done once in 3 months for diabetics

What is the use of doing this test?
It tells your doctor and you the average blood sugar level during the past three months.
One of my patients had asked me this question. “Why should I do this test? I check my blood sugar every week.”
This was my answer: it is not enough to know the fasting blood sugar and post Prandial blood sugar levels because what I have seen among my patients is that just before the blood test for few days they eat correctly and when the test comes the level is almost normal. But when I do this test for them it shows a high value. This means that most of the “other” time my patient has high blood sugar levels.
Similarly your doctor and you need to know if this is what happens in your case and your treatment needs to change depending on such a result, or tomorrow a diabetes complication could occur and both your doctor and you will wonder why this happened to you.

When and How often to test your blood sugar levels at home
The next step is to know when and how often you need to test your blood sugar levels.
This depends on various factors and your doctor is the best person to tell you how often you need to test your sugar levels.
Newly diagnosed diabetics and diabetics who are not under control may have to test:
•Fasting for at least 8 hours(Before Breakfast)
•1-2 Hours After Breakfast
•Before Lunch
•1-2 Hours After Lunch
•Before Dinner
•1-2 Hours After Dinner
•Bedtime
•3 A.M. (in some conditions)
I have just mentioned the maximum that a person whom I would treat might have to test in one day. In such cases I usually ask them to get admitted and have a lovely nurse do the testing.
But on average my patients are asked to test three to four times a day till their sugar levels are in control then I ask them to test once a day.
But there are some conditions where you should test more often than normal.
Situations where your doctor might want you to check your blood sugar levels more frequently:
•If your diabetes medicine changes
•If you begin taking other kinds of medicines
•If you change your diet
•If your exercise routine or activity level changes
•If your level of stress increases
•If you are sick. When you are sick, even without eating, your sugar levels may run high, so testing is important.
Continue testing more often until you have maintained your blood sugar levels for at least 1 week, or until your doctor advises you that more frequent testing is no longer necessary.

When first diagnosed a doctor is looking for blood sugar levels within a certain range. There are three tests that can be used in diagnosing diabetes. These tests all require a blood draw and if the test comes back positive then that diagnosis must be confirmed on a following day using one of the three tests.

The three tests that can be used to diagnose diabetes and blood sugar levels that are looked for as recommended by the American Diabetes Association are:

1. Casual plasma glucose level at or above 200 mg/dL. This is in addition to showing symptoms of diabetes. The casual test can be taken anytime of the day regardless of the last time the person being tested ate.

2. The fasting plasma glucose test is done at least eight hours after the person has had their last intake of calories. The criteria for a positive result with this test are a plasma glucose greater then 126 mg/dL.

3. The two hour oral glucose tolerance test. This test is done by the patient drinking a glucose solution containing 75 anhydrous glucose dissolved in water. Blood is drawn two hours after drinking the solution and a positive result is a plasma glucose level greater than 200 mg/dL.

Once the diagnosis of diabetes is made it is important for the diabetic to work to maintain their blood sugar level within a certain range. This is done through self monitoring of blood glucose using a blood glucose monitor. Doing so will allow diabetics to monitor and control metabolic control of their disease and lessen the risk of hypo or hyperglycemia, both of which can have negative risks.

The diabetic blood sugar level that those with diabetes should try and maintain is between 70 to 120 mg/dL either before a meal, like breakfast, or four to five hours after their last meal or snack. Blood sugar will go up after any meal or snack and ideally it should drop to under 200 mg/dL about two hours after that meal.

By keeping tight blood sugar control the diabetic can live a long and healthy life and lower their risk for the many complications that include vision degradation, kidney disease, nerve damage and heart disease.

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Type 2 Diabetes – Basic Facts

A carefully collected data shows that around 20 million residents of USA are suffering from diabetes. More than 95% of these are suffering from type 2 diabetes. The more alarming figure is that average age of diabetic patient has dropped from 52 years to 46 years when the current data is compared with the one collected in 1988.

Even worse news is that diabetes is not limited to only old aged people. Teenagers and even youngsters are also acquiring the disease. Further both genders have an equal tendency of acquiring this disease.

So the question may arise that how does this disease set in? The basic reason behind this is the dysfunction of pancreas. The disease arises when the insulin production by pancreas is impeded because of any reason. Occasionally the cells start to role abnormally and they become unable to use the provided insulin in the bloodstream. Insulin is the hormone that is required to convert glucose into energy.

Symptoms Of Diabetes Type 2

The most problematic thing in type 2 diabetes is there are not any obvious symptoms of the disease. The most common signs of diabetes however are

* Upsurge in urination
* Intensified thirst
* Appetite increase
* General exhaustion
* Slow healing of wounds
* Indistinct vision
* Erectile dysfunction in men
* Recurrent vaginal infection in women

If someone is experiencing any of the above mentioned symptoms it is better to consult doctor at its earliest.

Treatment of Diabetes Type 2

The most important step in treating diabetes is to lose weight. Most doctors are of the view that losing of added weights helps in the proper control of blood sugar level. This also decreases requiring diabetic medication. The best two methods of losing weight are

1. Exercising regularly
2. Following a proper diet menu

Exercise

Cardiovascular exercises and weight training help to trim down not only the waist but also blood sugar levels.

Diabetes Type 2 Menu

The most important nutrient the diabetic should consume is proteins. It helps to build the muscle and bone mass of the body. This further helps in generating energy as well. The healthiest proteins for diabetics are low fat milk, skinless turkey, soy food, nuts and legumes. Generally a person must accustom himself to eat more fruits and vegetables instead of preserved and canned foods.

In order to monitor the foods you eat in breakfast, lunch and dinner it is good to design a diabetes type II menu. The typical items that can be included in type II diabetes menu are potato salad, Spanish omelets, green salad, and shrimp, grilled chicken sandwich and fruit yogurt. These meals are not only healthy but also mouthwatering.

The bad news is that heart problems is the number one killer of Type 2 diabetics. The same risk factors are present for both : being obese, unhealthy triglyceride and cholesterol levels, and hypertension.

The metabolic syndrome is not just a bunch of independent symptoms that happen to coincide in an individual. All these risk factors are strongly related and work together. If you have even one of them, you are sure to have many, and likely all of them. The only way to grasp what your triglyceride and cholesterol levels are is through lab testing.

Having the metabolic syndrome may appear like a dark and sad scenario ( and it is ), but the proven fact that these elements are so closely related may also be used to stop or lessen their effect.

These 2 factors are being obese and high blood sugar. Control these 2 classic Type 2 diabetes factors, and the triglyceride and cholesterol levels should improve, the high blood pressure reduce, and your general health will improve.

There is one more factor present in Type 2 diabetics, the factor that all but outlines what Type 2 diabetes is : insulin resistance. Insulin resistance must be controlled, else attempts to control weight and blood-sugar will be maddening and near impossible.

It is particularly difficult in those cases where the Type 2 diabetic must employ insulin injections to help to control blood sugars. On and on it goes in a terrible, arching cycle towards cardio-vascular and other potentially fatal diseases.

Insulin resistance can be treated with drugs like metformin and/or others prescribed by your physician. A further approach and therapy is to limit the amount of carbs in the diet that raise blood-sugar and require insulin in the 1st place.

The point of this article is that by controlling your weight and blood sugars, as well as your insulin resistance, you can significantly lessen your risk factors for heart problems and strokes.

It does not make sense to think that all of a sudden the whole world just when sugar crazy.As for diet, it is important for a diabetic to get some exercise but it is important for everyone to get some exercise. The problem with emphasizing that the diabetic get exercise can lead one to think that the lack of exercise caused the disease. Exercise can also give you a false sense of being healthy. Many athletes do not realize that they have type 2 diabetes until they start getting symptoms of the illness. It often comes as a surprise to the people who have just healthy bodies on the outside.  Afterwards they are often placed on a type 2 diabetes diet with the hope of lowering the blood sugar.

Often with the type 2 diabetes diet the first thing you hear about is getting rid of the sugar. Sugar is important; sugar is the fuel that drives the energy of the blood. The problem is the pancreas not the sugar. It is like saying that your car has a bad gas tank so I guess I will drive without gas. Sugar is a carbohydrate that the body uses as its main fuel. It will take a strong mental determination if you are to stop diabetes, it is important to start with the right attitude. When you start your type 2 diabetes diet like the one mentioned above, remember that is not your fault tha you have thi disease.

The fundamental problem in diabetes mellitus is the body’s inability to metabolize glucose, a common form of sugar, fully and continually. This is a vital process in creating body cell energy. Glucose is a chemical derivative of the carbohydrates in foods after they have been ingested. Glucose is stored under normal conditions in the form of glycogen, or animal starch, in the liver and muscles for later use, at which time it is converted to glucose. Essentially, diabetic control depends upon the proper interaction of the following three factors: diet, insulin or hypoglycemic pills, and exercise.

The diet is prescribed on the basis of the person’s size, weight, age, and occupation. The balanced diabetic diet should contain the following nutrients: calculated quantities of carbohydrates, protein, and fats, normal amounts of vitamins and minerals, and no more than 100 grams of fat, principally drawn from the polyunsaturated fat group.

The American diabetic diet recommends that we get 50-60 percent of our calories from carbohydrates, 12-20 percent from proteins, and less than 30 percent from fats. This is necessary to keep a balanced level of blood glucose.

Moreover, the American Diabetic Association advocates the exchange measured diet. The exchange method is based upon the premise that foods which contain the same food value can be exchanged with another without altering the person’s basic dietary prescription.

Being diagnosed with diabetes can indeed be devastating. But then again, adhering to the prescribed diabetic diet, as well as having a more active lifestyle, will help make managing diabetes mellitus an easy task.