Facing Your Diabetes

After you're diagnosed with diabetes it's important that you deal with it in a truthful, upfront way. Here are some tips that might help....

It's sometimes difficult to cope with diabetes in your life.  Eating proper meals, taking your medication, and exercising are only part of the treatment for diabetes.  Your emotional state is also an important part of your diabetes management plan.

 Some have compared living with diabetes with picking up an elephant with one finger and always waiting for it to fall.  It can be a smothering experience which will leave you running for the door as soon as it's mentioned.  But it's something you have to face if you want to live a
healthier life.

There are many things that can keep a person from diabetes from taking care of themselves.  Three of the most common problems that contribute to diabetic denial are fear, anger, depression, and other issues you may have to deal with that were present before you were diagnosed with diabetes.

There may be a fear associated with not taking care of yourself.  Fear of not knowing what's facing you down the road can keep you from doing what's necessary to help control your diabetes.  Diabetic complications can scare most people who read about them so you're not strange or weird for being frightened when you read about what "might" happen to you.

You might also be afraid of the changes you've been told you have to make in your life now that you've been diagnosed with diabetes.   Being afraid of the continual finger sticking involved with testing your blood glucose levels is also a common fear/frustration.  It doesn't matter if you were diagnosed two days ago, or it you've had diabetes for ten years.  If you're afraid of the changes, that's a valid feeling.

If you're angry about having diabetes that can make you do things that are counterproductive.  Hearing or reading about anything dealing with diabetes may infuriate you.  It could also take the form of brooding moods where you allow yourself to think about your diabetes, but only in
regards to how much you hate having it.

If you're depressed about your diabetes you may feel that you can no long enjoy life now that you have diabetes.  You may be confused about how to take care of your diabetes and not know where to begin.  There are a whole new set of rules you have to follow, and if you're not as organized as you need to be, or if you're not used to following so many rules you can be disoriented and
confused.  You may also be attaching your self-esteem to your blood glucose levels.  A 300 blood glucose reading shouldn't make you feel like a failure.  It's a high reading, but it doesn't mean you're a "bad" person, or that you're not intelligent.

Someone telling you that you have to take care of yourself isn't going to get you to do it if you have other problems in your life you have to deal with.  You may have had problems with your eating habits before being diagnosed with diabetes.  Don't expect for those problems to go away just because you've been told you have diabetes.  Those problems were in your life before you were diagnosed and they can still be there after diagnosis.  Being told you have diabetes can be a
motivating factor in you trying to get a handle on your problems.

Don't expect yourself to be a super-human.  Grownups aren't supposed to complain about having to eat in a healthy way, or complain about having to take injections and/or oral medications, right?  That's false.  You're human, and you can't expect yourself to be a robot and do everything perfectly without a mistake or without showing any emotion.  If you feel like crying sometimes, then cry.  If you get angry sometimes, allow yourself that outlet.  Just try not to take your anger out on your loved ones.

If your blood sugars have been high for  a long period of time you may also be experiencing periods where your highly agitated. You may feel like you want to punch walls, and if anyone says anything to you, you might be yelling or speaking to them in an angry tone.  This is also something a lot of people with diabetes experience.  This may cloud your judgment, and it may also make you feel more alienated than you actually are.

Then there are the times when a person with diabetes gets frustrated because their blood sugars stay high no matter what they do.  Diabetes is a disease that is affected my many variables, so what works for you one day might not work the next day.  Walking down the street and getting upset because someone stepped on your foot might make your blood glucose levels shoot up 50 points, just from the stress.  You may experience lows (hypoglycemic reactions) often if you're aiming for tight control.  Diabetes is a disease that requires constant planning and re-planning if you want to get it under better control.

WAYS TO COPE

Remember, this is your diabetes.  It's as much a part of you as your eye color.  It can get under control, but it will never go away.  It'll be there 24 hours a day.  Because of this it's crucial that you teach yourself how to cope.  Some solutions will literally involve teaching yourself new skills such as mealplanning and keeping good blood glucose testing records. Other solutions will involve learning how to deal with the daily ups and downs diabetes brings to your life.

You can't let others tell you what to do unless you feel it's best.  If you're used to eating breakfast at 10:00 a.m., and your doctor tells you that you MUST eat at 8:00 that might not be what's best for you.  Explain to your doctor that you eat breakfast at 10:00 a.m. and you want your diabetes management plan to reflect that.  No one is a "perfect diabetic".  There are no "perfect" humans, so everyone can't eat breakfast at 8:00 a.m., lunch at noon, and dinner at 6:00.  You have to incorporate your life choices and preferences into your diabetes management plan.

You also have to be willing to learn.  Your doctor only sees you for a specific number of minutes, a few times a year.  Your doctor can't be with you 24 hours a day to tell you what to do concerning your diabetes.

If you inject insulin you have to learn how to adjust your insulin injections.  If you haven't been taking your insulin shots as required, the act of injecting may still feel foreign to you.

If you take insulin injections realize that your insulin needs will change from day to day.  If you didn't have diabetes your body wouldn't use exactly the same amount of insulin every day, so don't expect your body to use the exact same amount of insulin if you inject it.  You have to how to increase or decrease your insulin dose depending on your situation.

One goal you may want to have is to be able to take care of yourself if you can't reach your doctor.  This might seem like a monumental goal right now if you're confused and don't know much about diabetes, but it can be accomplished.

You may be a person who has a lot of knowledge about diabetes, but you don't use it.  You're well ahead of the game since you won't have to study as much before you start taking charge of your life.  Try to use that knowledge to improve your life.  Also try to work on figuring out why you're not using the diabetes knowledge you have.

If you have another person in your life who is trying to help you there may be times when you think they're "nagging" or just trying to control your life too much.   Try to remember that if someone sees you not taking care of your diabetes they may be afraid that you'll get sick, or worse.  So try to step into their shoes for a moment before you say anything harsh to them.  They may not know they're "nagging" and feel they are genuinely helping you.  If you can talk it over with them in a calm way things may get better.