Gift Ideas for a Person with Diabetes During the Year

We are all aware of getting gifts for people with diabetes during the holidays, but do we think of gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, and other special days. With that in mind, here are a few ideas that are not just for Christmas, but also for anytime.

Medical alert jewelry is always a great gift; however, make sure that the recipient will wear it. I have been shocked at the number of people with diabetes that will not wear anything that identifies them as having diabetes. In conversations with several emergency medical technicians (EMTs) over the last few months all commented how few people actually wear medical alert jewelry of any type.

All agreed that too often people are given medication that they are allergic to or have bad reactions after a few minutes. Several commented that the police that often arrive at a person's residence do a search for medications and check the refrigerators looking for medications requiring refrigeration. One of the EMTs stated that he likes people that have medical alert information where it can be found as this often means better treatment and a phone call will alert them to medications that could be life saving for the person.

Another commented that in many cases where the husband and wife are both alive, sometimes one spouse will not be aware of what medications the other spouse is taking. He has also seen one spouse refuse to give information that could be critical to the treatment of the spouse in trouble. Often they have brain freeze and cannot think when a loved one is in trouble.

Fresh food is always appreciated. Avoid 'food of the month clubs,' as you will often pay more than at the local grocery store and for poorer quality. If your friend lives in a cold climate, warm gloves, thermal socks, cashmere scarves (even the wool variety), and warm hats are often much appreciated. These will help in the cold winds and help reduce the stress on the organs.

If you have the funds, exercise machines can be a great exercise aid. Before spending the money, be sure that there is space available and that the person has the ability to use the equipment. If the person is one that likes massages, facials, or other pampering sort of things, then consider these. Be sure to avoid tanning beds, as these are not safe. The tanning bed manufacturers will claim otherwise, but they are still not safe.

If you have youngsters on your list, how about lessons in Karate, dancing, fencing, basketball, or other sport they may have an interest? Always be sure that the parents will support the youngster in this. Some children and even teens enjoy reading and will love books. Check to be sure if they have an interest in a series or particular author.

If a person with diabetes works, buy them a slow cooker. They can leave for work in the morning and come home to a cooked meal at night. If necessary, consider adding a slow cooker cookbook.

If the person with diabetes needs to be in contact with others because of health issues, think of a cell phone. This might help allay anxiety when they are alone. Be sure that you can afford or the person can afford the monthly bill.

For an elderly parent, an alert necklace with a button that can be pushed to summon help by the police can help after falls or other events where the person is threatened or fears outsiders can be of help. Even web cameras if the parent will allow them can help and make the elderly parent more comfortable. Then you can keep tabs on them from your computer at home and in some cases from work. Be sure your employer will allow this first.

Lessons for People New to Type 2 Diabetes, Part 13

The last topics can be real problems for people new to diabetes. The first reference is my blog on the summary of diabetes basics which will take you the topics you may wish to read. It even has many of the topics covered in this series.

If you are new to diabetes, learn about hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia. I know many people will say that people on most oral medications, except the class sulfonylureas, do not have to worry about hypoglycemia and in general they could be right. But add insulin or some of the other injectable medications to just about any oral medication without a reduction in oral medication dosage could cause hypoglycemia. If you are on insulin, hypoglycemia is a real and dangerous possibility.

Hyperglycemia is the unreasonable elevated level of blood glucose and if your blood glucose does not stay elevated for an extended period, you may not have any adverse results. However, if the level remains elevated for several weeks, then you will be promoting the complications of diabetes.

Both hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia can both be the cause of death if diabetes is not managed. Hypoglycemia, if severe, is the cause of more deaths, but hyperglycemia, if not managed, can also cause death.

So what are the complications? Retinopathy, neuropathy, nephropathy, atherosclerosis, and deafness are the most common, and many don't include deafness. The first three and deafness are grouped together under the term microvascular complications because they result from damage to the small blood vessels. The macrovascular complication is atherosclerosis, which is caused by damage to the large blood vessels. Retinopathy affects the eyes, neuropathy affects the nerves, nephropathy affect the kidneys, and deafness affect the small blood vessels in the inner ear.

Medical alert jewelry is something many people with type 2 diabetes just do not want. This I do not understand. Some on insulin do have the jewelry and are happy they do. However, most on oral medications do not because they don't see the necessity. If you are involved in an accident, at work or in an automobile, think of what might happen if you are unable to speak for yourself. Oh, you don't think any harm will happen. Well, guess again, as the emergency medical technicians may just hook you up to an IV containing glucose and your blood glucose may rise significantly. What may happen if you are unable to speak for yourself for a week or longer?

I wear a necklace with my information on it. I have had to show it only once and that was overseas. Once they looked at it, there was no further problems. I have heard some horror stories about people with type 2 diabetes being involved in auto accidents that did not have diabetic or medical alert jewelry and were harmed because of this.

Importance of Medical Alert Jewelry

Warning – if you are taking insulin or oral diabetes medications that may cause hypoglycemia, you need to be wearing medical alert jewelry. Yes, I think it is that important. Everyday, an officer of law enforcement, somewhere in the United States encounters people that are driving as if they were drunk, but in reality, are suffering from low blood glucose (hypoglycemia) and they have no indication that the person has diabetes.

One highway patrol officer of my state says he has no sympathy for people with diabetes that do not wear medical alert jewelry. Because he has a younger brother that has type 1 diabetes, he knows how quickly a low can happen and the dangers it can cause when driving. He likes to tell the story of how one afternoon near the end of his duty for the day, he came upon a vehicle partially in the ditch and a female driver slumped over the wheel. Upon going up to the vehicle and looking in, he could see a medical alert bracelet. Rather than investigate then, he returned to his vehicle and called for an ambulance saying he would return with information when he could read the bracelet information.

He returned to the vehicle with a tool to open the door if needed and it was needed. Upon opening the door, he could not smell any alcohol and went to the medical alert bracelet. He could read that the young woman had type 1 diabetes and recorded the telephone number and the number on the bracelet. Then he checked to see if there was a pulse and finding one, went back to his car and called the number to his headquarters.  This was then passed to the hospital and the ambulance crew. Then the hospital checked the information and suspected hypoglycemia.

When the ambulance arrived, the first thing they did was check the blood glucose level and because of the low number, immediately started a glucose IV and then removed the woman from the vehicle and put her in the ambulance. Within 20 minutes, she regained consciousness and shortly was able to answer questions. She had the officer search her car and find her glucose log book. She had him find the page for the current day and a reading for the time she had started to drive. He knew that the reading should have been okay and asked how long she had been driving. She indicated about an hour and one half. Actual time from blood glucose reading to when the officer read this was almost two hours.

She said that she had all of a sudden felt dizzy and had started to pull off the highway. She stated that she had apparently not been able to stop the car completely before passing out. She could only remember shutting off the car, but nothing else until coming to in the ambulance. The officer had put this much together because her car was not completely in the ditch and not completely off the gravel side of the road. The officer told the woman he was glad she was wearing a medical alert bracelet. She admitted that she did not like them, but her mother had insisted on her wearing one that day.

The officer asked her permission to see if he could get the car back completely back on the gravel and she asked him to do this please. The ambulance crew continued to monitor her blood glucose level and removed the IV when she attained a certain level. They then tested her a half an hour later to see if she was holding this and the officer said that since she was and could walk, that they could return and he would check her once more before letting her drive since she had her testing supplies located. When she tested herself about 15 minutes later, she was still okay and the officer asked her to stop in 15 minutes and check herself again. She said she would and he suggested that she continue to wear her medical alert bracelet. She said that she had to now as this had given her a good scare and without it, the officer may not have had a clue as to why she was slumped over the wheel.

He said in the next year he had seen her five more times and she always held up her arm to show him she was still wearing the bracelet. He said the one time that they were able to talk, she said that she has continued wearing it and had thanked her mother for insisting on her wearing it that day.

Read this blog about the pros and cons of the different types of medical alert jewelry.

Back to Diabetes Basics – Part 7

Medical Alert Jewelry

When I started this series, I did not realize that I would find so many topics that could be considered good basics, and I haven't even covered oral medications. Medical alert jewelry is something many people do not consider until it is too late. For many, this realization happens after they have their first episode of hypoglycemia. The police may become involved because of erratic driving and because people display symptoms very similar to a drunk driver, they are arrested and jailed without treatment.

Or, a family member discovers you on the floor passed out. They do the proper thing by calling 911, but forget to say you have type 2 diabetes and you are hooked up to an intravenous (IV) solution loaded with dextrose and this is continued when you arrive at the hospital. Now you are in hyperglycemia and nobody knows you have diabetes yet. Think of the damage that could have been prevented with medical alert jewelry.

If you think I am in favor of wearing a medical alert piece of jewelry, you are right. I have talked to the first responders in areas near my town and in my town, and they are trained to look for medical alert jewelry, and even tattoos in conspicuous places. They may not find some that are tattooed in private areas. I have written several blogs and while you may not agree with every thing I say, please consider wearing a medical alert piece of jewelry or a medical tattoo. The blogs are four and can be read here, here, here, and here.

Diabetes Management and Doctors

Here is where I normally get aggressive with the doctors, but this time I will try to cut them some slack. Diabetes management is primarily the responsibility of the patient and this is the focus for most of this discussion. Why? The doctors cannot live with you (unless you are married to the doctor), they see you less than one percent of the time in a year, and the rest of the time, you are generally on your own.

Now I know that you as the patient are not always supplied with all the information necessary to understand and manage your diabetes. Don't always blame the doctor, as there is only so much time available for an appointment. If you doctor gives you some information, this shows he/she is trying. He does have time constraints especially if he does not own the practice and works for another doctor or is employed by a hospital. Both can be so profit minded that they do not often allow for proper patient care. This is why other types of medical practice are finding openings and gaining acceptance rapidly.

So just who is stopping you from managing your diabetes? Is it family members? How I dislike saying yes, but family members can be the worst in preventing good diabetes management. Why would I say this about loving family members? Well, loving family members can be the least understanding and the most unwilling to learn about diabetes. They just want you to take a pill and return to the life you had with them before diabetes.

Many family members could care less about diabetes because you do not look sick and are doing the same things for them that you were doing before diabetes. Even your loving spouse can totally ignore diabetes and not want to learn about it. Why would I say these things? Because I read about this on many diabetes forums. Husbands or wives not supporting the spouse with diabetes.

Then the family members can be very irritating when they become the diabetes food police or the diabetes police. Asking you why you can still eat that piece of candy or cake when it is loaded with sugar. Even though you have allowed for this treat and compensated for it with what you have eaten, they will still not leave the subject alone. They don't understand that sugar is not the only thing you need to be careful of consuming.

They do not understand why you will not eat many foods and have very small servings of others. They start hearing horror from well meaning friends and translate this to fear about you developing the same problems. They become your worst nightmare as the diabetes police and some can become very belligerent in their actions.

Then there are those family members that will just not cooperate. You have gotten rid of the junk food and are working to convert everyone to more healthy foods and doing more cooking and serving more fresh foods. They insist on eating no differently than the past and won't accept the change like they won't accept that you have diabetes.

There are families that do support each other and do whatever they can do to make things easier. They know and accept the change in foods and understand that things are now different and they are benefiting as well by the changes being made. This makes for a much more loving family and home. If you are so blessed, do everything to keep this blessing and make it grow.

Now back to you! Yes, I am talking about the person with diabetes. No, I'm not going to give you a pass. We have all been through the stages of grief many people experience after receiving the diagnosis of diabetes. So get over the anger, put the denial behind you and make up your mind that you want to live and manage diabetes.

Learn that diabetes is not your fault. Could you have prevented it? Not likely. If doctors would have done screening on a regular basis, maybe, if they had paid attention to the results. The one chance you had may have passed. But if you are strong willed and decide, if you are medically able, to do the exercise and nutrition with enthusiasm, you may be capable to getting off medications for a period of time. This will depend on the damage already done to your pancreas. Some are able to stay off medications for decades while others only for a few years.

Many people do not comprehend that because diabetes is often different for each person, that they now have become their own science experiment. Testing can be very difficult as Medicare and most medical insurance companies are strictly limiting test strips that they will reimburse. Testing is necessary to determine how your body reacts to different foods. Testing is also necessary to give you a report on how you are managing diabetes. Numbers are just numbers if you don't make use of them.

Good luck and learn to manage your diabetes, deal with those around you, learn to make the best use of your doctor(s), and other resources.

Suggestions for Doctors

Yes, some doctors do accept suggestions. I hope that these make sense and will help them help patients with diabetes. I urge doctors to visit this page of the Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and at least give this as a handout to their patients with diabetes. Even family members could benefit if they are receptive. While this page has existed since September 27, 2011, their experts have not seen fit to add more websites to the list. Why? That I cannot answer, but I think they have decided to stop rather than promote more sites. Note: The above link no longer exists because AACE could not do what was necessary.

Certainly many doctors do use the Internet, and have their favorites for diabetes that they could add to this list. Some doctors do have contact with nutritionists and could have a handout for this as well. A very small number of doctors are making use of peer mentors in some locations to be mentors for certain aspects of diabetes, like proper hand washing and testing locations and even use of their meters. There may be other areas of use.

Series 7 of 12