Diabetes control and prevention has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. Still, many people struggle to keep their glucose in their normal blood sugar range.
Here a just a few current insights for preventing and even reversing the effects of diabetes.
- Use a glucose meter to find out what is going on with your body. This doesn't sound health-forward, but it is. Despite the easy availability of meters, there are many times for testing that most people don't take advantage of. When you don't feel well and you want to know if it's the flu or low glucose levels. When you've eaten a breakfast scone and you want to know if it raised your blood glucose too much.
A lot of people simply avoid testing because you have to prick your finger. If you can't get blood, slip a rubber band around your finger where it meets your hand (just be ready with a Kleenex!). If you have a meter that's been made recently, you can test in many parts of your body, including your arm or abdomen.
If you have type 1 diabetes, you should test before meals and bedtime at least so you can set your insulin dose. If you have stable type 2 diabetes, test twice a day or once at different times. If you're going on a long trip, test more often. And remember, you can always test any time you need.
- At the same time, don't think you can control your short term blood glucose precisely. Doctors often warn and cajole patients to "stay on their regimen" whether it's medication, diet, or exercise, exhorting them that proper regimen would keep their urine free of glucose. Two problems with this model. First, glucose shows negative in urine at 180 mg/dl which is a level that can still cause damage. So, negative urine doesn't necessarily mean there is no glucose problem.
Second, there are too many factors that affect glucose in blood and urine - your diet, exercise, and medication which should all be part of your regimen, but also your attitude, other illnesses, and other things such as menstrual cycles that affect your body chemistry. That doesn't mean that your regimen means nothing. It means you need to stay the course over the long run no matter the short term fluctuations.
There's absolutely no need to gamble on alternative treatments these days when mainstream medicine endorses the notion that you can prevent and even reverse diabetes by getting on and staying on a good regimen.
That leads to three axioms:
You can control your blood glucose levels over the long haul and control your health.
You need a regimen that you can absolutely depend on to get you to normal blood sugar range and stay there so you the damage that high glucose levels is doing to your body as soon as possible.
You must follow the regimen religiously (consistency is the most important aspect of maintaining healthy blood glucose levels).