The finger prick was quick and relatively painless, the needle darting suddenly from a small lancing device to break the skin on my index finger.
Maureen Daniello, program coordinator for diabetes education at Martin Memorial, let some of the blood dribble onto a test strip that fed into a glucose meter. It was a routine I’d seen my mother do countless times, the daily monitoring of blood sugar levels that many diabetics must perform.
The numbers flashed on the meter as 117 milligrams/deciliter – well below the 160 mg/dl limit since I’d eaten just two hours prior to the test. That meant I’m holding diabetes at bay – at least for now.
I had been listening to Maureen talk about diabetes as we recorded this week’s Martin Memorial Healthcast, along with a friend of mine who is also our podcast guru. It was a sobering conversation for both of us, given our family histories, our penchant for eating stuff we shouldn’t eat, as well as the extra weight hanging around our guts.
All three are major contributors to diabetes – facts we both conveniently ignore. Still, for people like us it’s hard to pretend we’re not at risk given the family histories: my mother is diabetic, her father was, some of my mom’s brothers have it, my father’s mother had it; both of my friend’s parents were also diagnosed with it.
After our talk with Maureen, my friend tested his fasting blood sugar level and recorded a 132 and a 137 – higher than the range of 80-120 recommended. The numbers may also serve as a wakeup call.
Diabetes is a horrible disease that can affect everything from your eyesight to your feet. It is a leading contributor to strokes, heart attacks and kidney disease. And the problem is growing by the day.
According to the American Diabetes Association, nearly 21 million Americans have diabetes – including an estimated 6.2 million people who don’t know they have the disease. Another 54 million Americans are considered pre-diabetic. The total estimated cost of treating diabetes in 2007 was estimated at around $174 billion.
That’s a hefty price to pay for a disease that, in many cases, is entirely preventable. I intend to do whatever it takes to make sure I don’t get added to the list.
-- Scott Samples
Public Information Coordinator
Listen to Maureen Daniello discuss diabetes, including ways you can prevent the disease, by visiting Martin Memorial Healthcast at www.mmhs.com/content/healthcasts.htm
2 comments:
Scott
It's always good to raise awareness of the dangers of diabetes. Can I just ask that you distinguish between the different forms of diabetes. Did you mother have type 1 diabetes with insulin treatment, or type 2 which is treated either with oral medication or with insulin?
It's an important distinction. Especially because type 2 can sometimes be avoided using diet and exercise whereas type 1 is an autoimmune disease. Those of us, like me, with type 1 get tired of being told that eating too much food is why we've gotten this disease.
Can I also point out two extremely useful diabetes resources?
TuDiabetes.com is a wonderful social networking site for people and families affected by diabetes. Folks there are helpful and supportive. The second is the diabetes search engine. This only searches sites that give useful information about diabetes and is a handy way to get answers to questions about diabetes.
Bernard,
That's a very good point -- one that Maureen touched on in the podcast I noted but I failed to do.
My family history is tied to type 2 diabetes. Type 2 has garnered much of the headlines lately, especially since the rate of new cases has gone up in recent years and in some populations -- such as kids -- where it was rarely seen before.
That being said, I certainly should have made a distinction between the two.
Thanks for the comment and the information on the diabetes sites. I'm on my way to check them out now.
-- Scott
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