Information for New Diabetes Clients

Handouts

• Preventing Long-Term Complications from Diabetes
• Do’s and Don’t’s of Footcare
• Staying Active with Diabetes
• Diabetes Food Guide
• Healthy Eating Tips from Diabetes Canada
• Diabetes Canada – Just the Basics
• Mindful Eating Resouce Sample Meal Plan
• Snack Ideas
• Introduction to Mindful Eating
• Facts on Soluble Fibre

The Weekly Health Beat Podcast

The Weekly Health Beat radio program dives into a variety of topics, events, and services surrounding the health and wellbeing of our Northumberland community.

• September 16, 2020 – Mindful Eating with Kristen Hipwell, RD, CDE (Part 1)
• October 8, 2020 – Mindful Eating with Kristen Hipwell, RD, CDE (Part 2)
• August 11, 2020 – Blue Zone Centenarians with Intern Emily Vlietstra
• April 22, 2020 – What Foods Are Good to Eat During COVID-19? with Jennifer Conium, RD, CDE
• March 10, 2020 – Nutrition Month: More Than Just Food with Kristen Hipwell
• November 26, 2019 – Diets with Jennifer Conium, RD, CDE

Learning About Diabetes

Here is a little information that will help before you meet your diabetes team nurse & dietitian. We also have counselors on our team and a part-time foot care nurse who mainly sees people with foot changes from diabetes and can’t afford to pay.

Have you been told you have Type 2 Diabetes?

Diabetes means the glucose/sugar that your body needs as energy no longer gets to your muscles and cells as fast. Food and drink give you energy. The glucose stays longer in the blood than usual, raising your blood sugar. Your sugar moves around the body in the blood. To be useful, the sugar needs to leave the blood and enter all your muscles and body parts to give them energy.

When blood sugar is at least above 12 mmol/l but especially in the 20s, you may urinate/pee more often, be thirsty, be very tired, lose weight, and have blurry vision. The symptoms go down as your blood sugar goes back towards normal (4-7 mmol/l).

What is Prediabetes?

Your body cannot always keep your blood sugar in the normal range. The body is starting to keep sugar in the blood too long before it moves to the muscles and body parts to have the energy they need.

Often prediabetes turns into diabetes. But NOT always. A healthy lifestyle can make a big difference. Healthy eating & doing regular exercise are actual treatments.

What is Gestational Diabetes?

The body works hard during pregnancy. Sometimes that means that sugar levels go higher than normal during the pregnancy. Even though it will likely go away after pregnancy, it is really important to the health of the fetus/baby to keep the mother’s blood sugar levels on target. This may be food habits, exercise if possible, or sometimes medicine. For the baby, injections of insulin are the safest medicine to use. Women with gestational diabetes are more likely to get Type 2 diabetes

What is Type 1 Diabetes or LADA?

Type 1 diabetes and LADA mean the body cannot move the energy from the blood to the muscles and body parts at all. If it happens fast, it is called type 1 diabetes.  LADA is like type 1 but starts in adulthood and happens slowly.

Treating Type 1 diabetes and LADA means only insulin works as a treatment. Pills do not work. Food and exercise are important but insulin is essential. Insulin is given by injection or through a pump.

Blood sugar changes by 4 main factors:

1. Food: Healthy eating habits help your blood sugar rise more slowly and with fewer spikes. Missing meals do not bring your blood sugar down –it stresses the body to have no energy.
2. Physical activity: Moving helps bring the sugar from the blood into the muscles faster. It helps lower blood sugar.
3. Medication: some medicine, like steroids, increase blood sugar. Medicine for diabetes, both pills and injections, helps blood sugar not rise as much or bring blood sugar down to normal.
4. Stress usually makes blood go up. Not eating, infection, feeling “stressed” or surprised or scared are all stresses – some positive, some negative – but all can affect blood sugar level.

Prevent long term complications of diabetes

If your blood sugar stays above normal for months and years, you may get some of the complications of diabetes: kidney do not clean the blood as well; eyes do not see as well; feet may hurt or go numb ( especially at night); sores take longer to heal; you may have heart problems; you may have a stroke.

You can learn to control your blood sugar and we will help. In fact, you are likely to give yourself a healthier lifestyle in the long run. It is hard work though.

Tlo learn more: Understanding Diabetes – Type 1, Type 2, Prediabetes, and Gestational
https://www.diabetes.ca/en-CA/about-diabetes