What can we as people with type 2
diabetes do to encourage our doctors and other professionals to help
people with prediabetes? This is a difficult question and David Mendosa tackles prediabetes from a different perspective that is
interesting to read.
David says, “If you have prediabetes,
taking the diabetes drug metformin might stop you from getting
diabetes and could also help you in other ways. But persuading your
doctor to prescribe it could be a challenge.” Yes, many doctors
will not prescribe metformin “off label” and probably because
they do not feel this is the correct thing to do.
Lifestyle intervention is not working
because most doctors and certified diabetes educators refuse to work
with people with prediabetes. Without education and reinforcement,
most people will fail here because of the term prediabetes and the
lack of seriousness by doctors and CDEs.
The biggest factor hurting people with
prediabetes is the American Diabetes Association. The ADA only gives
prediabetes a casual mention and even ignores many people with type 2
diabetes when Dr. Robert Ratner, chief scientific and medical officer
for the ADA that says, “Many people with type 2 diabetes who are
on medications don't need to do home glucose monitoring at all,"
in talking about oral medications.
It is this attitude that discourages
doctors and especially patients when they know that people inside the
ADA are not on their side and working to make management of diabetes
work for them. Dr. Ratner wants people with type 2 diabetes to
manage diabetes in the dark and make diabetes progressive.
Fortunately, many people are learning
to buy the testing supplies on their own, are reading on their own to
manage prediabetes and type 2 diabetes, and are ignoring the ADA. I
have many people that ask me why I cover some of the ADA guidelines
when they don't care about people with prediabetes and diabetes. I
have to tell them that we still need to be aware of what they are
saying and if there is any hope for change. The ADA has changed some
in recent years, but still done very little for helping people with
prediabetes, which is a group of people they created in 2003 with
their experts.
David does cover some of the known side
effects of metformin and gives some of the proper warnings. You
should take the time to read his blog.
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