Seeking and Giving Diabetic Support

There has been a need for a diabetes support group in our community for several years. Diabetes is a deadly disease, now ranking at least fourth as a leading cause of death. There are a great number of possible complications, including the number one reason for blindness. Other complications include kidney disease, heart disease and stroke, nerve disease and amputations, high blood pressure and dental disease.

The number of diabetics keeps growing in our country and so far there is not a cure. The recent figure that I saw was 22 million. A large number of these do not realize that they are diabetic, putting them in the dangerous position with respect to developing complications. There are a great number of others who are pre-diabetic. They will develop diabetes in the future unless they take action to head it off.

Every diabetic needs support and encouragement. Each one is different, since what may help one, will not necessarily be helpful to another. Not only can the support and encouragement be received, but each can support and encourage others. There is a great amount of information available and it is a constant study. More information is rapidly becoming available. Each diabetic needs to become involved with education programs. This includes some of the reasons for a diabetic support group which will start next week with the leadership by Darla Englebrecht, diabetes nurse educator.

The first diabetic support group meeting will be held at the Vernon County Senior Center, located at Hunter and Main, 10-11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 9. Even though it is being held at the senior center, the meeting is for people of all ages interested in the management of diabetes.

I have the honor of having been asked to be the speaker at the first meeting. Plans are in place to meet once a month. Some of the meetings may be held in the evening to give more working people a chance to attend. Don't worry, the programs will get better. There will be several resource people asked to present programs, such as a pharmacist.

Many of the readers of this column have expressed interest in the diabetic columns, because they are either diabetic or someone in their family is diabetic. Recently, one of the columns I wrote was about diabetes, but I am not an expert in this field.

I can relate to you some of my experiences and some of the information that I have found. It is always a concern that I am putting the right information in the columns. Someone that is more of an expert such as a doctor or nurse might take me to task if the information is in error.

A few days after the column was published, Darla called me leaving a message. She said that she is a new diabetes educator in town and someone had suggested that she read the column. She liked what I wrote and left her phone numbers for me. When I called her, she expressed that the things that I wrote were in agreement with her thoughts. Wow, that was good to hear from someone who is an expert in this subject.

Having a diabetic educator has been needed in this community. She is here in Nevada at the Bowman building on Monday, Thursday and Friday. She has a 10-hour program for each diabetic who signs up for her education program. The needs of the individual determines what the content of the program will be. My experience in life is being a diabetic. I have wanted to work with an educator to help me improve my control with the disease.

It has been 8 years since my physician told me that I was a diabetic. I started taking medications with the hope that I would get control and stop taking medications. He said that my goal was to not have to take insulin. He was right.

I met Darla last month and it was timely. My blood glucose was too high and my Hb1ac remained higher than it should be. That meant doing what I have not wanted to do. I instructed by Darla on how to myself insulin shots and I received my insulin. On Christmas Eve, I started my own insulin shots. At first it is like other things in life when it is a first, I was clumsy with it. The thoughts of putting the needle into my skin was worse than doing it. Most of the time, it isn't even felt.

Taking her program was of great value to me. I still need to take the time to study the material and to implement much of the information. One of the items she dealt with was food exchanges. Much of the information for diabetics includes information about exchanges. I never paid much attention to them. I knew that there were foods that a person needed to stay away from and others were more desirable.

Now since the exchanges have been explained to me, I have a better appreciation for them and realize that I need to be concerned about the exchanges. One part of the program includes meeting with a dietician. I have yet to do this part of the program.

Formal comprehensive diabetes self-management education topics include in the program presented by the BSN, RN include: Describing the diabetes disease process and treatment options; incorporating appropriate nutritional management, incorporating physical activity into lifestyle; utilizing medications (if applicable) for therapeutic effectiveness; monitoring blood glucose, urine ketones (when appropriate, and using the results to improve control; preventing, detecting and treating acute complications, preventing (through risk reduction behavior), detecting and treating chronic complications; goal setting to promote health and problem- solving for daily living; integrating psychosocial adjustment to daily life; and promoting preconception care, management during pregnancy and gestational diabetes management (if applicable).

Darla is performing a valuable service to our community. For additional information about the diabetic support group and the self-management education program contact Darla Englebrecht, BSN, diabetes nurse educator at the Bowman Building located 2015 N. West Street or phone (417) 443-2016 or (417) 262-0447. If you wish to contact me about the support group, call me at (417) 667-6024.