No, diabetes is not a cakewalk. It has
its own set of problems and they can sneak in when least expected.
They can wreck havoc with blood glucose levels and destroy will power
when you need it most. Some use the following terms - traps,
pitfalls, weaknesses, and lack of discipline. I don't care what you
use for your favorite term, but these bad habits can really make of
mess of good blood glucose management.
In good blood glucose management some
things should become habits or for those that do not like habits at
least daily tasks. These should become part of your routine just
like brushing your teeth. Why is it then that people have such
problems with this list (sorry, the link is broken now)? There may be others, but I have seen this
list several times in the last few years, so there must be something
to it. I can only find the one now on the internet and my second
source is a clipping my daughter sent me about seven years ago –
sorry no source information came with the clipping. It lists two
additional items beyond the link above.
The items listed in lists of bad habits
are:
1. Not testing blood glucose.
2. Not taking diabetic medications at the right time.
3. Skipping meals.
4. Emotional eating.
5. Binge eating.
6. Drinking too much sugar.
7. Skipping veggies.
8. Avoiding fish in favor of red meat.
9. Not losing at least 10 percent of body weight (if needed).
10. Skipping exercise – stop being a couch potato
11. Getting too little sleep
For many of us, number nine above could
be an excellent idea, but some people do not need to lose weight so I
leave this in only for those of us that need this reminder.
Since the link has a video and
explanation with of the eleven bad habits, I will let you read them
there.
The two additional items from the
clipping are avoiding most alcohol and not seeing your
doctor when scheduled. Alcohol does strange things to blood
glucose and may mask BG readings. Many people continue to have more
alcohol than they should, but small quantities occasionally may still
be okay for some individuals. Others should stop consuming all forms
of alcohol with diabetes.
Not keeping a doctors appointment when
scheduled seems to be more common than I would have thought.
Unfortunately, there are more reasonable and practical excuses, but
still excuses for missing an appointment. Meet the doctor that uses
fear to make patients follow instructions and I will show you
patients that will consistently miss appointments. Also, doctors
that ignore your questions and talk at instead of with you and you will
find patients missing appointments. Not every patient misses
appointments, but there are too many patients missing appointments.
There are other bad habits that I
occasionally see listed and they are health centered and need to be
added to any list.
Not paying attention to your
nutrition. This is becoming more difficult because of the on
going actions of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) and
their takeover of the activities of nutritionists. We may now have
to learn nutrition on our own to circumvent the dogmas and mantras of
whole grains and low fat. Obtaining unbiased and balanced
nutritional information may become a thing of the past.
Not inspecting your feet daily.
As a person with diabetes, I know the importance of doing this daily.
Daily inspection of your feet becomes important because of
peripheral neuropathy. One statement I will make is something a
cardiologist made to me in the day following my diagnosis. He said
always wear shoes or thick sole slippers around the house. This has
stayed with me and has proven very good advice, as I know that more
than once it has saved me from inflicting myself by stepping on
broken glass shards. Yes, accidents do happen and dishes and
containers happen to slip out of our hands and break on the floor.
You may think you have cleaned all of it up, but you can always miss
something. I know because I have found pieces in the bottom of my
shoes and slippers on more than one occasion.
Have not stopped smoking. Even
I did not stop smoking for some time after my diagnosis. It took
several doctors asking me appointment after appointment to get me to
stop finally. Add to this my wife politely asking and then begging
me. I will admit I enjoyed smoking and had not wanted to quit, but
when confronted with this again and again, I finally gave it up.
After the fact, yes, I wish I had stopped sooner.
Stop yo-yo dieting. Since I do
not believe in dieting, I have no problems with this. Yes, I need to
lose some more weight; however, with the changes I have made now, I
am starting to shed some of it. I have seen many people that go from
diet to diet, find that they lose some weight, and as soon as they
stop, gain it all back. This is actually harder on your health than
maintaining weight and then slowly changing what you consume
healthfully to reduce your weight.
Stop Self-Diagnosing and let your
doctor(s) do their job. This does not mean that you should stop
keeping daily records such as blood glucose readings, a food log, and
records of your lab test results. For the right doctor, this may give
him/her the answers as to why things are heading in the direction
they are. Always keep a written sheet of questions to ask your
doctor. Your doctor does not live with you 24/7/365 and you must
learn how to manage your diabetes in the interim, but self-diagnosing
is taking matters into your own hands and often conflicts with your
doctor's efforts to keep you well. If you believe your doctor isn't
up to par, or if his diabetes treatment methods aren't working for
you, find another diabetes specialist.
Lack of self-discipline. This
is often the one that gets more people in trouble with their
diabetes. Call it lack of will power, or a bad habit of
self-indulgence, but this spells real trouble for people with
diabetes. This also contributes to higher A1c's and earlier onset of
diabetes complications. A positive attitude of “I can do this”
can help this in many ways.
The last item I want to discuss is one
I hear from type 2 people more often that I care to – My doctor
did not say anything about this. This is the excuse they use for
not wanting to do something that they should. I know that some
doctors do not cover everything, but the problem is often with the
patient when they do not listen to their doctor when he is
talking. My term for this is “selective hearing.”
Many patients do this when they hear certain words from their doctor.
This often happens and is as bad as the doctors that go on
“autopilot” and ramble on.
If you feel something else needs to be
added, please leave a comment.
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