Diabetes

I have heard that wounds heal more slowly in people with diabetes. Is this true and should I be worried when I go in for an operation? In patients whose diabetes is under good control...

If you are on the type of diabetes medication that has a significant risk of causing a low blood sugar, you should check your fingerstick glucose before driving. If your blood sugar is low, you...

General preparation for traveling may include some of the following considerations. Remember to take your glucose testing equipment and your diabetes medications. Take an extra supply of test strips and medication to allow for travel...

Sports and exercise can affect the blood sugar in various ways. The use of energy by the body during the exercise will have the tendency to lower the blood sugar, as might be expected. If...

I will be getting a course of steroid treatment. I heard this could throw my diabetes out of control. What should I do? Steroids are a type of medication based on com-pounds naturally produced by...

I will be traveling. How do I handle the time changes with my insulin shots? Traveling more than one or two time zones distant can temporarily throw off the timing of your injections and meals...

The extent to which your diabetes will impact upon your job will depend on the nature of the job, the severity and complications of your diabetes, and the treatment you are taking for it. Many...

I am scheduled to have an operation. How do I prepare my diabetes for this? The extent to which you and your physician prepare for your operation depends on the extent of the operation, the...

What should I do? When a woman of childbearing age has diabetes, it is very important to plan the pregnancy ahead of time for a number of reasons. The first reason is that studies have...

How can I manage it discreetly in public places? It is sometimes surprising (and reassuring) to realize that, given the fact that about 1 in every 12 people in our society has diabetes, we encounter...

How do I know if my doctor is right? At the time of writing, there are estimated to be about 16 million adults in the United States who are aware that they have diabetes. There...

The sugar in fruit juices is predominantly fructose, which is a disaccharide, meaning that it contains two molecules of glucose joined together and must be bro-ken down to glucose in order to be absorbed, which...

I have heard that depression is more common in people with diabetes. Is this true? Yes, it is true that people with diabetes (and with other long-term illnesses) can experience higher rates of depression. This...

Are There Any Jobs I Cannot Do? Whether your diabetes will affect your work depends upon the nature of your diabetes and the nature of your work. Thus, the impact can be almost negligible to...

Bruises and swellings on the stomach (or more accurately the abdominal wall) due to insulin are caused by two distinct mechanisms and are not usually variations of the same thing. However, occasionally a bruise will...

There certainly can be. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation can have a negative effect on several aspects of metabolism, including blood sugar, blood pressure, and even cholesterol levels. Blood sugars can be increased by...

Stress is a broad term that can have a number of meanings. For the purposes of this question, only emotional stress will be discussed. Emotional stress (whether its source is personal, professional, psycho-logical, or social)...

Glucose monitors are quite accurate in that any given reading on the same sample of blood should only vary by a few percentage points (i.e., 5–10). In order to obtain approval from the Food and...

There are now three types of continuous glucose monitors available. They all transmit glucose results wirelessly from a small sensor placed just beneath the skin via a transmitter whose signal is received by the monitor...

Since insulin became available, probably nothing has more revolutionized the day-to-day management of diabetes, especially type 1 diabetes, than the arrival of the capillary glucose monitor. So successful has this technology been that this is...

Some of the tests that your doctor will perform to monitor your diabetes and the status of any of its chronic complications. The main things that interest your doctor are monitoring the control of your...

The most important pieces of information that you can bring to your doctor are the results of your home glucose testing (and preferably your glucose monitor, also) and an updated list of the medications you...

The target level for your blood sugar depends on who you are and on the other circumstances of your health. Various authoritative expert bodies have published blood sugar targets to aim at before and 2...

How often you need to check your blood sugar depends upon how the information that blood sugar testing provides will be used. All too often, people with diabetes are instructed to test their blood sugar...

Why do pills tend to fail in the end and do they all fail at the same rate? Pills for type 2 diabetes tend to fail after a period of time because the severity of...