Self-care For Individuals With Diabetes

A proactive attitude towards your diabetes treatment is crucial in preventing complications. Diabetics can't just delegate their care to their health care provider. They have to be constantly involved.

While everyone should have an annual physical, eye exam, and dental exam, this is especially important for diabetics. You also need to inform the dentist and eye doctor that you are diabetic so they can be alert to the special problems that accompany diabetes.

Since high blood sugar levels weaken your immune system, you are more vulnerable to infections, flu and pneumonia. It is there important to do as much as possible to prevent these. Make sure your vaccinations for flu, tetanus, and pneumonia are current.

Diabetics need to take particularly good care of their feet. Diabetes can damage the nerves in your feet as well as reduce the flow of blood to your feet. That means you can injure a foot and not even be aware of it. It also means that the injuries will be more difficult to heal. So you need to check your feet daily for blisters, cuts, bruises, cracking, redness, and swelling.

You also need to keep your feet clean and dry. Wash your feet daily using gentle motions, a soft washcloth and a mild soap. Gently dry your feet giving careful attention to your toes. If your skin is dry, apply a moisturizer.

Change socks daily and avoid bulky socks or sock with tight elastic bands. Buy comfortable, safe shoes. They should have soft leather tops and flexible soles. Shoes with low heels and closed toes are safer and provide more comfort.

Diabetics need to be very particular about shoe fit. It is recommended that you shop for shoes late in the afternoon or evening. Then you will be trying them on at the time of day when your feet are most likely to swell. Your shoes should be large enough to accommodate normal swelling.

Diabetics should positively not smoke. People who have diabetes and smoke are increasing their risk of heart attack, stroke, nerve damage and kidney infections. In spite of that, it is estimated that 25% of Americans who are diabetic do smoke.

Diabetics also need to monitor their blood pressure. They are more vulnerable to developing high blood pressure than people who do not have diabetes. This is especially true of Blacks and Hispanics. High blood pressure causes from 35% to 75% of all complications that can accompany diabetes.

Individuals with diabetes also need to learn to manage stress. When we're under stress we tend not to eat properly or get the right amount of sleep.
The lifestyle practices that accompany stress are very detrimental to diabetics. Also, if the stress is excessive or lasts for a long time, our bodies produce hormones that block the effect of insulin. The result is a rise in blood sugar.

So it is important to employ stress-reduction techniques such as maintaining a healthy diet, getting enough sleep and exercising regularly.

Also look for ways to lighten the stress. This could mean evaluating your daily commitments to see what could be eliminated or reduced; avoiding or limiting time with people who cause you stress, and if work is the problem, seeking out ways to lighten your load.

There are also stress-busting practices such as yoga, meditation, deep breathing and relaxation that you can learn to do and apply in stressful situations.