Diabetes For Dummies
Diabetes, which is excessive glucose in your blood, leads to serious health problems if left untreated. Follow the American Diabetes Association screening guidelines to get tested for diabetes at the earliest possible time. Adopt some basic rules for living with diabetes and continuing your diabetes care to better control the disease. If you’re prescribed oral medications for diabetes, do your homework on dosage amounts and side effects.
Screening Guidelines for Diabetes
The American Diabetes Association created guidelines to screen for diabetes at the earliest possible appropriate time. Take a look at these guidelines to find out when to get tested for diabetes:
People with symptoms of thirst, frequent urination, and weight loss are tested immediately.
People over age 45 should be tested every three years if otherwise normal.
People should be tested at a younger age and more often if:
They are obese.
They have a parent or sibling with diabetes.
They are from a high-risk group, such as African American, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American.
They have delivered a baby over 9 pounds or had gestational diabetes.
They have high blood pressure.
They have low HDL cholesterol or high triglycerides.
Ten Rules for Diabetes Control
Diabetes doesn’t have to rule your life. Be proactive! Follow these guidelines for controlling your diabetes, and your problems should be few and far between:
Major monitoring: Make sure your doctor orders the key tests at the right times.
Devout dieting: Work with a dietitian to develop a great eating plan.
Tenacious testing: Check your blood glucose at correct intervals.
Enthusiastic exercising: Burn off calories and help your heart.
Lifelong learning: New things are being discovered and you need to know about them.
Meticulous medicating: You can’t respond to medicines you don’t take.
Appropriate attitude: A positive attitude results in better control of your diabetes.
Preventive planning: Know the menu before you go out to dinner.
Fastidious foot care: Check your feet with your eyes daily.
Essential eye care: Get an eye exam every year.
Standards for Continuing Your Diabetes Care
Managing diabetes requires regular doctor visits that include standard monitoring of various diabetic factors. Following are guidelines for your diabetes care — like when to see your doctor, what should happen at each visit, when to have lab tests done, and how often to self-monitor blood glucose.
Consistent diabetes management is key; if test results show any change from your history, then you and your doctor can address them before any problem worsens.
Frequency of visits:
Daily if starting insulin
Weekly if starting oral drugs
Monthly if not stable
Quarterly if stable
History at each visit:
Frequency of hypoglycemia
Results of blood glucose self-monitoring
Changes in treatment
Symptoms of complications
Physical at each visit:
Physical at least annually:
Dilated eye exam by eye doctor
Filament test for foot sensation
Hemoglobin A1c every three months
Fasting lipid profile yearly
Microalbumin measurement yearly if urine protein negative
Frequency of blood glucose self-monitoring:
Before meals and bedtime for person with type 1 diabetes
Before breakfast and supper for person with type 2 diabetes
Once daily for person with stable diabetes
Before and one hour after meals for pregnant woman with type 1 diabetes or gestational diabetes
Oral Drugs for Type 2 Diabetes
Insulin shots aren’'t the only drug treatment for diabetes. If your doctor prescribes oral drugs for your diabetes, use this chart to look up the medication names and dosage amounts. Then educate yourself on diabetes medications, their possible side effects, and drug interactions.
|Class||Brand Name||Generic Name||Average Dose||Range|
|Sulfonylureas||Glucotrol||glipizide||10 mg||2.5–40 mg|
|DiaBeta, Glynase||glyburide||7.5 mg||1.25–20 mg|
|Amaryl||glimepiride||4 mg||1–8 mg|
|Meglitinides||Prandin||repaglinide||1 mg||0.5–4 mg|
|Starlix||nateglinide||180 mg||180–360 mg|
|Biguanides||Glucophage||metformin||1,000 mg||500–2,000 mg|
|Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors||Precose Glyset||acarbose miglitol||150 mg||150–300 mg|
|DPP-4 iInhibitors||Januvia||sitagliptin||100 mg||25–100 mg|
|Onglyza||saxagliptin||5 mg||2.5–5 mg|
|Tradjenta||linagliptin||5 mg||5 mg|