Diabetes Tips
When it comes to Diabetes, we've been there, done that, now serving 157 tips in 18 categories ranging from Diabetes Fundraising & Research to Type 2 Diabetes.
The 5 Best Apps for Managing Diabetes
Managing diabetes can be a difficult process. But with the right app you’ll be able to take control of you diabetes in a fast and efficient way!
Glucose Buddy – Diabetes Helper – This iPhone app has been featured in the American Diabetes Association’s Forecast Magazine!
· Pros: A completely comprehensive and fast moving app! You have access to glucose logs, food calculators, calorie, and exercise trackers. This app even allows you to set reminders to check your glucose levels.
· Cons: None! You’ll find everything you need to track glucose levels with this app.
· Pros: This app goes beyond what most other diabetes management apps can do by making it possible to download blood glucose readings directly from your glucose reader. Those readings can then be analyzed and measured in daily increments or over a longer period of time.
· Cons: None! This app makes tracking glucose levels a breeze!
Diabetic Audio Recipes Lite – An essential part of managing diabetes is eating a diet that will maintain normal glucose levels. This app makes doing that a piece of cake!
· Pros: The variety of recipes will make cooking a delight! Also, each recipe contains photographs and easy to follow instructions.
· Cons: Some of the recipes contain higher levels of bad carbohydrates than some diabetics might like.
· Pros: If you are looking for something fast and user-friendly this is the app for you! The My Net Diary Diabetes Tracker features tracking for food, glucose, carbohydrates, insulin, and even medications. This app is an all-around management system for diabetics.
· Cons: None! This app is comprehensive and amazingly easy to use.
· Pros: Dealing with diabetes can be a difficult learning process. But when you have the Diabetic Connect App you have immediate access to an online community of others who are living with diabetes.
· Cons: No access to glucose monitoring or nutrition counters.
Why does diabetes cause intense thirst?
Sometimes simply knowing the "whys" in regards to your disease can make a big difference. Let's take a look at one of the many symptoms of diabetes: excessive thirst.
It's All About Glucose
The reason that diabetes causes excessive thirst is a bit scientific. When glucose reaches a certain concentration point in your bloodstream, your kidneys will stop being able to pull more glucose out of the water in your body.
This causes a chain reaction that leads to the build up of osmotic pressure in your kidneys. After this occurs your body really can't absorb water back into your bloodstream and, occasionally, the reverse begins to happen. Water begins to get siphoned out of your bloodstream. Because of this many sufferers of diabetes will slowly fall into dehydration.
Early Symptom
Excessive thirst is one of the earliest known symptoms for someone that is suffering from diabetes. Unfortunately it is a rather vague symptom and could mean any number of things. Typically the thirst symptom doesn't stand out in Type 1 and Type 2 sufferers until other symptoms have cropped up, as well. This makes targeting thirst as an indicator incredibly difficult, and should not be relied upon as a tactic to identifying diabetes.
Dehydration itself seems like a minor issue, but it really isn't. When your kidneys begin betraying you like this it will lead to a chain reaction of bigger and bigger issues that could lead to ketoacidosis, severely elevated blood sugar levels, and eventually death. Being aware of your symptoms is very important.
Get Off Cigarettes and Reduce Your Risk for Diabetes & Complications
Diabetes is a serious metabolic disease that results from the body's inability to make insulin or its inability to utilize the insulin that is made. Certain lifestyle habits can help or hinder your ability to manage diabetes. Smoking in particular can have a seriously negative effect on your health when you have diabetes.
The Link Between Smoking and Diabetes
A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that smoking 16 to 25 cigarettes a day increased the risk of developing type-2 diabetes threefold. If you have other risk factors for diabetes such as family history, obesity or being part of a group known to have a higher risk, find smoking cessation help immediately to maintain good health and avoid this life-threatening disease.
Damage From Smoking
The chief reason smoking is a health hazard is its effect on blood vessels. Years of smoking cause blood vessel walls to weaken, making the heart work harder to pump blood to the farthest points of the body. This weakness in the vessel walls can lead to a number of problems within the circulatory system. In addition, the nicotine itself causes an increase in a type of hemoglobin that is associated with higher blood sugar.
Diabetic Health Issues Related to Smoking
- Heart disease
- Stroke
- Circulatory problems
- Problems with wound healing
- High blood pressure
- Cancers of the mouth and throat
- Impotence
- Pregnancy complications, such as miscarriage and stillbirth
Group support programs to help stop smoking, nicotine replacement products and medications can help people to stop smoking and reduce the number of complications that smoking causes to those with diabetes.
Top Diabetes Treatment Centers in the United States
The best medical care can make a huge difference in your success in living with diabetes. Visiting one of the top diabetes treatment centers in the US to help manage your health condition can give you a better outcome and higher quality of life. The top diabetes treatment centers, as ranked by US News and World Report, are scattered across the country, so there is a high likelihood that one of them is located near you.
- The Mayo Clinic, located in Rochester, MN. With a high volume of diabetic and other endocrinology patients, The Mayo Clinic has experience treating all sorts of complicated cases.
- The Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, OH. The Cleveland Clinic is also recognized for its high level of patient satisfaction.
- Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, MA, is also ranked in the top 10 hospitals in 14 other adult subspecialties.
- Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, MD, is ranked number one in geriatric care, ear, nose and throat treatment, urology and rheumatology, in addition to its high ranking in diabetes care.
- UCSF Medical Center, in San Francisco, received a high score in patient safety, as well as a top 5 ranking in diabetes treatment.
Rounding out the top 10 treatment centers for diabetes are Yale-New Haven Hospital, University of Washington Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Earn a Diabetes Educator Certification
Are you ready to spring forward as a diabetes educator? Do you want to make an impact on the lives of people afflicted with diabetes? If so, earning a certification will take you where you want to go.
The National Certification Board for Diabetes Educators (NDBDE) defines the eligibility requirements for obtaining a CDE - Certified Diabetes Educator - credential, which you earn by passing a written examination. The level of competence and standards you achieve with this certification equip you to advance your career while acquiring the finest skills to help people with diabetes.
You qualify if:
1. You are a qualified and licensed healthcare professional engaged as a registered nurse, an occupational or physical therapist, a dietitian, psychologist, optometrist, physician, registered physician assistant, podiatrist, certified clinical physiologist, master-certified health educator, dietitian nutritionist registered with the Commission on Dietetic Registration, or a healthcare professional holding at least a master's degree in social work from an accredited institution.
2. You have a minimum of 2 years of work experience in your discipline in the United States or its territories.
3. You have at least 1000 hours of work experience as a Diabetes Self-Management Educator (DSME), of which no less than 400 hours should have been completed in the year before applying to sit for the exam.
4. You have 15 hours of continuing education relating to diabetes that you have completed in the 2 years preceding application.
The fee for initial certification is $350. The examination is conducted twice a year, in the spring and fall.
You must meet ALL of the above requirements to apply for a diabetic educator certification.
Inside Scoop: How 5 Celebrities Cope with Their Diabetes
Diabetes strikes people in all walks of life. A number of well-known celebrities have revealed their struggles with diabetes to the public. These individuals have learned to manage their disease while keeping their busy schedules.
Mary Tyler Moore
Mary Tyler Moore was one of the first celebrities to go public about having type-1 diabetes. She brought new understanding of the disease to the public conversations with her candid comments about managing blood sugar levels, insulin injections and the need for further research to better management this often-difficult disease.
Halle Berry
Halle Berry once slipped into a coma for a week, because of her diabetic condition. Although an early misdiagnosis made her believe she had type-1 diabetes, she has learned to manage her diet rigorously to keep her type-2 diabetes under control.
Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks recently announced to the public that he has recently been diagnosed with type-2 diabetes. Managing type-2 diabetes can be a challenge when working on a busy filming schedule, and Tom Hanks is always in demand for new roles. However, Hanks understands the importance of good self-care in the management in this disease and is committed to managing his weight to stay in good health.
Bret Michaels
Being one of the members of the rock group Poison, you wouldn’t peg Bret Michaels as someone who has lived with type-1 diabetes since the age of 6. He’s overcome a number of medical issues, and works to teach his young daughter who is pre-diabetic the best ways to stay healthy.
Larry King
Larry King has often interviewed others about the challenges in their lives, and he too has had his share of medical challenges, including an ongoing fight to manage his type-2 diabetes, which he manages with diet, medications and exercise.
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