Diabetes Education in America

Posted by Chris on Nov 2, 2011 in Diabetes Awareness, Diabetes Education | 3 comments

Today’s post is coming at you very late at night because of some hosting and WordPress issues that I was having, but it seems that everything has been settled, let’s hope. My post for today is to speak about diabetes education in America. The main part that I want to focus on is the lack of diabetes education that is out there. I have written about diabetes education in the past and still feel strongly about the need for it. Tomorrow, I have a special guest post from Hope Warshaw with more information about diabetes education.

Here is my thought on diabetes education. How do we expect people with diabetes or who may be at risk for diabetes to change their lifestyles for a healthier life if they don’t know what they are to do? When somebody is rushed to the ER when they are first diagnosed they get hit with so much information and then may have one or two follow up visits with a diabetes educator. And then that’s it. Maybe their insurance doesn’t pay for it, or they don’t have any insurance at all, or they can’t afford to go see a dietician or psychologist or any other form of diabetes educator. How are they supposed to make the decisions that they need.

One simple way is by providing easier access to this diabetes education. The hard part is, how do we do this? How do we get insurance companies to cover the costs of dietician visits or diabetes educator visits. But what if your insurance does cover a Certified Diabetes Educator, but you can’t get an appointment for 6 months because there is only one CDE in your area and they are booked. Guess your health just has to go on a 6 month long vacation right? Uhhh…I don’t think so.

Some of the best diabetes education I ever received in my life came from a non-CDE, just a diabetes educator in general. Of course there needs to be guidelines, you can’t just have any Joe Schmoe off the street coming in and giving diabetes education, but there just has to be a way that somebody who can provided information about diabetes is allowed to. How do we do this? I don’t know exactly.

This is exactly why I am looking for help from people out here. I am interested in forming some sort of diabetes education advocates group. I tweeted tonight about what we can do more for advocacy and one idea that I mentioned was that, it’s great to have as many people advocating as possible, but I think that if there were certain groups of people with more of a passion about one aspect than the other, more can be accomplished this way.

If you are interested in joining some sort of weekly, bi-weekly, monthly chat, Skype call, anything, please let me know.

Remember, tomorrow Hope Warshaw.

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3 Responses to “Diabetes Education in America”

tmana says:

November 4, 2011 at 3:53 PM

The group “Peers for Progress” apparently came out with a peer mentoring curriculum a couple of years ago, but it’s not diabetes-specific. CDEs are already considered the paraprofessionals in the field (with the doctors as the professionals), so it will be hard to find a way to get our feet in the door in any “official” manner.
Jim Purdy says:

November 8, 2011 at 3:41 PM

For me, the best diabetes education has come not from any so-called experts, but from my own trial-and-error experience.

I think a lot of people with diabetes have found that many of the official diabetes guidelines just don’t work, because they recommend too many carbohydrates, which we then are supposed to “cover” with insulin or pills. That just sounds ridiculous to me, and it puts me on a roller coaster of very high and very low blood sugars.

I certainly haven’t found any final answers, but I’m now testing one food at a time, and taking frequent blood sugar readings to see which foods are safe for me. I recommend self-experimentation and record-keeping for everybody, to find what foods and exercises work for them.
Chris says:

November 8, 2011 at 3:54 PM

Jim

Thank you for your comment it is greatly appreciated. I agree with you that all of our diabetes is different and our bodies may react in different ways. It is absolutely important to know how our bodies react to certain foods and exercise and stress, etc.

The core fundamentals of diabetes are the same for everybody pretty much. If your blood sugar is high you pee a lot and it won’t be good for you in the long term. General diet and exercise tips can definitely help.

Me for example, when I eat low carb meals more than once a day, I feel exhausted and have no energy to exercise later on, so I can’t live by the “eat less carbs, take less insulin” lifestyle. I eliminate insulin by exercising and bringing my blood sugar down that way. But that’s just for me, doesn’t mean it will work for everybody.

Once again, thanks for the comment.