What Support Should I Seek After a Diabetes Diagnosis?

A diabetes diagnosis can be overwhelming, but you aren't alone. In this video, John Merendino, MD, emphasizes the importance of having a dedicated healthcare team to help you manage your diabetes and continue on your path to wellness.

Transcript

00:00

Being told that you have diabetes is a pretty devastating thing, of course. [MUSIC PLAYING] Oftentimes you feel as though something catastrophic has

00:07

happened to you and maybe you have to make an innumerable number of changes in your life and it's

00:14

going to be too daunting a task for you to do alone. So I think the important thing to remember is that there are a whole team of people out there

00:21

who can help you make those changes. Obviously your doctor is critical. And if you've got diabetes, in most cases,

00:28

your primary doctor is the right person to help you manage that, at least at the beginning. You don't always need to see a specialist.

00:34

But if you do, there are specialists around in the treatment of diabetes. But in addition to that, there are diabetes nurse educators

00:42

or certified diabetes educators who may be dietitians or nurses. They are exercise physiologists who

00:48

can help you understand what your exercise program should be. A lot of times there are hospital-based education

00:56

programs or classes that are relatively low cost. You can learn an enormous amount. And there's an awful lot of good information out there online

01:05

and in many books. So I think you can educate yourself. You can call upon people to help you make the changes that you

01:12

need to make. Many times when people are given a diagnosis of diabetes, they can become pretty depressed about it

01:18

because it is a disease that can have catastrophic outcomes. I think what's really important, though, is to remember that negative things don't have

01:25

to happen in diabetes if you change your life and you control your blood sugars properly. The likelihood of serious problems from diabetes

01:32

goes way, way down if blood sugar control is good. And in fact, if you have well-controlled diabetes,

01:39

the likelihood of problems that result from that are not much greater than in the general population. So it can be challenging to keep yourself upbeat and positive

01:47

when you receive negative news like, I've got diabetes. But remember that it's largely under your control

01:54

whether that's a serious problem in your life or whether it's something that you deal with effectively. [MUSIC PLAYING]