In my hometown there is a medical practice next door to a dialysis center next door to a wound clinic. It is like one stop shopping for people who suffer from diabetes. In the early stages of this chronic disease, people take medicine and check their blood sugar. As it progresses, it gets much more complicated and can result in wounds that won’t heal, amputation of body parts, loss of sight. It increases the risk for stroke, heart disease, kidney disease and nerve damage. People with advanced diabetes get a lot of expensive treatments that address their symptoms but none that address a cure.
We have a lot of work to do to improve the health of our nation. In the United States, statistics on chronic disease are staggering and sobering. I will share just a few number, that I learned at this site, on diabetes to get you thinking.
- “Between 1990 and 2010, the number of people living with diabetes more than tripled, and the number of new cases doubled every year.”
- In 2017, diabetes cost the U.S. $237 billion in medical costs
- In 1958, 1% of the U.S.population had diabetes. Today the number is over 9%
Read those statistics again, read them slowly. Let them sink in. I find them mind blowing. It scares the living daylight out of me. I see the damage diabetes causes in my own family as well as in my work as an occupational therapist. Trust me, it is a scary chronic disease, and I meet people after they have suffered for years and the toll on their health is beyond your imagination. This disease is debilitating and can be catastrophic. This disease has no cure, no magic bullet, no pill to make it go away.
Why Am I Hopeful?
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary the definition of the word HOPE is a “desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment”. I like to think of myself as an optimist. Someone who believes that the future will be better than the present, better than the past. I have always described myself as an optimist with one foot firmly planted on the ground. Half optimist, half realist? Deep down though I have to work at this optimism thing.
Despite this, I am incredibly hopeful that in the next few decades, doctors using a functional medicine approach to treat diabetes will far outnumber those using a conventional approach. I am hopeful that the dialysis centers and wound clinics will shutter their doors due to lack of patients. I am hopeful that this disease will become like a distant memory.
Doctors who use a functional medicine approach to the treatment of diabetes are making amazing discoveries and are helping their patients to not only manage diabetes but to reverse it. They are like detectives trying to help their patients and all of us solve our personal health puzzle, and we need more of them!
The best way to deal with diabetes is to prevent it in the first place. This is why I write so much on the topic of health and staying on top of it by making good decisions every single day.
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein
This disease can be prevented with lifestyle choices that keep us on the path of good health. Doctors who specialize in its treatment believe it is reversible with diet, exercise and healthy living. Reversible? That is certainly worth hoping for! I have hope that this is true and that the functional medicine practitioners who specialize in diabetes will continue to make progress fighting the good fight and sharing what they learn and what they believe with those using a conventional medicine approach.
We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I am hopeful that we can stop the progression and improve the health of people suffering from chronic disease. It doesn’t have to be like this, there are steps our leaders could take to make things better. But those steps do not feel within my reach to impact today.
Today, I can work towards improving my own health, to maximize my chances of living a long and happy life. Today, I can write about my health journey and the daily decisions I make, to obtain and maintain good health. Today, I can share what I learn in the hopes that my words can nudge others to join me in the pursuit of health. We get once chance at this beautiful life, make the most of it!
Lake Girl
Yes, diabetes can be managed with low carb, high fat diets! It can’t be reversed (it will return if you resume previous habits), but most people with type 2 can achieve normal numbers without drugs. This is how diabetes was treated before the discovery of insulin. I’m a COTA with mild diabetes myself. I’ve worked in nursing homes and been horrified by the food given to patients. Many patients complained to me that their blood sugar was fine before but was much worse once they entered the SNF, sometimes to the point of needing insulin. And now that I do pediatric home health, I see children being set up for a lifetime of health problems due to their diet.
I’m a COTA with mild diabetes myself. My numbers are in the normal range due to my dietary changes, and I’ve experienced multiple other health improvements. I was inspired to make these changes by my grandfather, a diabetic born in 1895. He ate an extremely strict low carb diet before it was fashionable, and was in better health and lived longer than everyone in the family of his generation and the next. He died in 1984 at age 87. I won’t say it’s easy, but it’s worth it!
I’m sure you know that a whole industry has arisen to support this way of eating. It’s a shame that part of the industry is all about substitute products, which seems to undermine the whole idea of low carb/ high fat, and raises blood sugar for many people. I find that I’m saving a bunch of time and money by cooking a pan of meat and a couple of veggies once or twice a week. No artificial or complicated ingredients required.
I hear the same concerns from patients regarding blood sugars while at the nursing home. They point out the plate of rice and bread; recognizing that if they eat it their blood sugar will sky rocket. So happy to hear you have your diabetes under control with diet! I love to hear success stories and wish mainstream medicine would pick up the ball and run with it! Thanks for reading!