Daily management of your diabetes depends on you

Although your doctor is responsible for your overall care, the daily management of your diabetes is up to you. On the warm August the third day in years past, I'd just finished delivering my first diabetes presentation in Easton, Pennsylvania, whenever a forty-something woman came up in my experience. "I got it!" she said excitedly. "When you said looking after my diabetes is up to me, well, I i never thought that before. I took my pills and then figured anything else was up to my doctor. But it's my job every day to complete the items that could keep me healthy." She shook me vigorously and, smiling, left the doorway before I possibly could even register how this straightforward concept would change her life - and her health.

With a short-term acute condition such as a sore throat or an ear ache, a health care provider diagnoses you, writes a prescription, lets you know to consider your medicine, and 2 weeks later you're cured. That's hardly the situation with diabetes. Diabetes is a chronic illness that must be managed on a daily basis so that it does not further endanger your health or impinge on your ability to enjoy life.

Managing diabetes requires you to make everyday decisions about when, what, and just how much you eat; getting exercise into your day; taking your medicine; how you can keep your blood sugar levels in target range even when you're sick or stressed; ensuring that you've enough supplies on hand; scheduling and keeping doctor appointments; and getting your lab tests done.

You're the same person in your health care team

At the 2008 annual American Association of Diabetes Educators conference, Dr. Bob Anderson, professor at the University of Michigan Medical School along with a pioneer of the "empowerment approach," said that when it comes to diabetes, patients make 98 percent from the healthcare decisions. Further, diabetes educators are accountable not for patients but to patients, ensuring that patients can make informed decisions.

Your health care providers are part of your wellness team, responsible for your overall care. They check your vitals; provide information, guidance, and support; schedule tests; and offer strategies for improvement so that you can be successful managing your daily care.

You're additionally a vital person in this team. Your job would be to assess the actions they recommend and see how these actions fit into your life and goals. If it's comfortable that you should follow your health care provider's exact instructions, and when doing this gives you excellent results, then go ahead and do so. If, however, you want more freedom, flexibility, and control, and the best outcomes from your diabetes management, then it is in your best interest to understand all you can about diabetes.

Partnering with your provider on your treatment plan helps create success

Patients benefit once they help design their treatment plan and that a workable treatment plan meets the following criteria. It

Takes into account your lifestyle, values, goals, resources, environment, and priorities
Is workable for your life
Is one you are feeling you can stay with
Gives you a framework for that daily decisions that diabetes requires

Following these four LIFE steps can help you, together with your health care providers, produce a workable plan.

Learn all you can about diabetes and yourself.
Identify your three guiding principles: role, flexibility, and targets.
Formulate your self-management plan.
Test out and evaluate your plan.

It's easiest to make the types of life changes that diabetes may need if they are vital that you you and you believe you'll be successful. Toward that end, build small steps into your plan so that you experience success. Each small success will result in bigger steps and bigger successes. Also, invest in making a change gradually; for example, add physical activity to your routine a few days per week, instead of every day, at first. Its easier to do.

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