It all kicked in

When I returned to the doctors, I was surprised that my appointment was not with my doctor but a specialist diabetes nurse.

She was as you would expect very informative and carried out more blood tests, alongside weight, feet checking, which was all new to me lol.

One of the first things she made clear was the difference in type 1 and 2 diabetes, although 90% of the ill effects of having diabetes are shared by both types, the reason for the 2 groups is how your body is producing insulin, a type 1 means your body has stopped making its own and type 2 means you body still produces some insulin, but for some reason it’s not sufficient to keep things as they should be.

Later I will discuss this in more detail but for now I will continue with all that kicked in for me once I was diagnosed.

Although she is now my specialist diabetes nurse, there had to be other appointments made also with others whom would now be what she called my team, 1 was with a foot specialist and a 2nd with a eye specialist.

The reason for me having to have these extra appointments was that both your eyes and feet are at risk more than normal if you have diabetes.

There are a lot of complicated medical terms that come your way when you are diagnosed with diabetes, but you will find I will not keep on about these, but will keep it all simple like myself.
I was given a blood sugar monitor and shown how to use this correctly along with the other supplies like lancets and test strips that go alongside the use of the monitor; I was also given key tone test strips ( again later I will explain this in a little more detail as to what and why I needed these ). The last item given to me was a medical disposal bin, this was to put any of the used items into.

The monitor would keep a record of my blood sugar results, and show me how the medication I was to take is affecting this; simply put the range of a person without diabetes would be from 4 - 6 at all times.

I was also started on medication this was aspirin, statin’s and directly for the diabetes metformin.

As you may guess all this from 1 appointment was a little too much to take in.
So I will leave things there for now and my next post will tell you what I found when I did my 1st blood sugar tests and also I will explain why I needed the specialist appointments and other medication.