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Diabetes Education & Care

Diabetes is a disease caused by a lack of the hormone, insulin, or by an inability of the body to use insulin efficiently. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, accounting for 90-95 percent of all cases. Other types include Type 1 diabetes, which is usually diagnosed as a child or young adult, and gestational diabetes, which can occur during pregnancy.

At our practice, we offer comprehensive diabetes care, including diabetes education and management. By providing you with knowledge and resources, our goal is to assist you with taking control of your diabetes so that you can live well while enjoying a healthy life.

Diabetes Education

Diabetes education is a critical part of diabetes management. Unlike other diseases that can be simply treated with daily medication, diabetes requires understanding components other than just medication, such as nutrition, exercise, and glucose monitoring. With diabetes education, we give you the knowledge to control your diabetes by developing a plan to stay healthy, and we provide the tools and ongoing support to make that plan a daily part of your diabetes management.

Patients have the opportunity to meet with our diabetes educators on an individual basis. The appointments focus on your particular concerns, including management of blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol, weight loss, and any other aspects of diabetes care that you would like to pursue. Individual attention allows you to make immediate changes and get immediate results, making your diabetes management easier.

Each of our patients starting an insulin regimen receives support training by one or more members of our professional staff. Insulin regimens consist of a thorough explanation of the insulin prescribed by your endocrinologist, injection techniques, and the proper use of insulin syringes, pens, and pumps. We help patients with continuous subcutaneous infusion, and we offer the full range of options, such as pumps or pods, with certified pump trainers to smooth the transition to this form of insulin therapy. A review of pertinent issues such as hypoglycemia, sick-day treatment, and blood glucose monitoring is completed for every individual.

Diabetes Care

A major component of diabetes care is continuous glucose monitoring. A Continuous Glucose Monitoring System (CGMS) is an FDA-approved device that automatically records glucose levels every few minutes throughout the day and night. As part of your care, we review your glucose levels with you and make any necessary adjustments in your diabetes management plan.

The main advantage of a CGMS is it can help identify fluctuations and trends that would otherwise go unnoticed with standard hemoglobin (HbA1c) tests and intermittent finger-stick measurements. For example, the device can capture dangerously low overnight blood glucose levels which often go undetected, reveal high blood sugar levels between meals, show early morning spikes in blood sugar, help evaluate how diet and exercise affect your blood sugar, or provide a review of the effects of changes made to your therapy by your healthcare team.

Patients can print our Diabetes Log to track blood sugar over the course of each day and see trends over the course of a week.

Disaster Preparedness Plan Diabetes Emergency Kit

When you have a chronic medical condition like diabetes, being prepared is key. If an emergency situation or natural disaster strikes, the disruption of a normal routine and limited access to much-needed resources can create chaos. Being caught unprepared for these types of events can be potentially life-threatening to a person with diabetes.

Having a diabetes emergency kit prepared in advance in case of an emergency evacuation, can be a life saver. To download a diabetes emergency plan checklist and learn how to prepare an emergency kit, please visit: mydiabetesemergencyplan.com.

For more information and resources to help diabetes patients through emergency situations, visit the Diabetes Disaster Response Coalition (DDRC) website at www.diabetesdisasterresponse.org.