Become a diabetes expert

If you have diabetes you must become your own expert, learning to handle whatever life may throw at you in a satisfactory way. The treatment of diabetes has changed a great deal in recent years, but public awareness has not necessarily caught up. So you are likely to come across a lot of people with out of date or fixed ideas, who think they know a great deal more than they actually do. But you need to be able to rely on your own knowledge. Indeed, to live your life in the way you want without too many unpleasant symptoms, you will actually need to know even more about diabetes than the average doctor does! To gain this knowledge you will have to ask questions and find out information if any aspect is less than crystal clear. Be sure to contact your consultant or diabetes nurse whenever you have questions on insulin dosages or other issues. If you save the question until your next visit, which might be 3months away, you may simply forget all about it. Becoming fully engaged with your diabetes and your own care is vitally important. Because you have to live with diabetes 24 hours a day, it is crucial that you decide as early as possible whether you are going to adjust your life around your diabetes, or whether you prefer to decide on a particular lifestyle and then adjust your diabetes treatment to enable you to achieve it.