(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Kos Diabetes Group: What advice would you give? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-03-17 Due to the unplanned Kos outage earlier in the week, a monkey wrench was thrown in my usual writing pattern. By the time Kos was up and running again, my daily life had taken several left turns and I suddenly had a handful of problems that rose to the top of the list and needed immediate attention. Once they had all been mostly taken care of, it was Thursday night with the publish deadline of noon Friday looming on the horizon. So what to write about that I can research, write, edit, and add graphics to in the few hours before I fall asleep on Thursday night and when I leave the house at 8am for my sword class on Friday morning. Me Thursday night as I’m trying to write this diary and Kos goes down again The thought that crossed my mind was this. If you could go back in time, what one piece of advice would you give yourself (or someone else newly diagnosed) just after you found out you were diabetic? Or what one thing do you wish someone had told you right after you were diagnosed that would have made those first few weeks/months living as a diabetic easier for you. Diabetes is serious but no reason to panic. Ask for the support you need from your family, friends, physician, or other support group This is kind of hard for me to answer since I had gestational diabetes (twice!) long before I was diabetic. Back then I was lucky because my sister got pregnant the year before me and she also had gestational diabetes. She shared lots of info with me, so when I was pregnant the next year and failed my glucose tolerance test, I already had a pretty good idea of what I needed to do. I had seen my sister go through it and so it wasn’t so scary. My sister was also diagnosed with Type 2 about four months before me and my husband had been diagnosed several years before that. My sister was just kind of annoyed about her diagnosis. She knew it was coming due to our family history and her four pregnancies with gestational diabetes. My husband was floored. He had no family history of diabetes at all and he was terrified. I can remember helping him learn to do a fingerstick and how to inject his insulin. I kept reassuring him that it wasn’t the end of the world and that he would just need to be more aware of what and when he was eating. Since I cook all the meals and pack his lunch for work, it was pretty much a no brainer for him to just eat what I prepared. I did all the work of counting his carbs and measuring his servings. All he needed to do was get in the habit of taking his medication. I’m sure that many others here had the gestational preview or had family members who were diagnosed before them and so had an inkling of what to expect like I did. But what about folks like my husband who were blindsided by their diagnosis and had no idea what to expect or what to do? My husband has told me many times that the fact that he was married to me and I had experience with gestational diabetes and how to deal with it probably saved his life because he was so overwhelmed he would not have been able to manage his care with any real success. I think the advice I would offer to someone newly diagnosed with no idea what to expect like my husband, is this. Don’t panic. It’s not the end of the world and you will be able to learn how to deal with it. Take one day at a time. If your numbers are too high one day (or one meal), just try to do better the next day/next meal. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Take the time to educate yourself about your condition and how to manage it. Whether you do it on your own using the internet, you consult with a nutritionist, or you attend classes at your doctor’s office or local hospital. Knowledge is power. What advice would you give? [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/17/2158694/-Kos-Diabetes-Group-What-advice-would-you-give Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/