5 posts tagged “blood pressure”
My rather lengthy article based on our Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes Book finally appears in the Sept/Oct 2007 issue of Diabetes Self-Management magazine!
The article focus is, naturally, Avoiding Diabetic Complications. It's titled "Nurturing Your Health Bank," (that's the online link) and you'll find it in the print version of the magazine on page 29. Drawing from the book, the article explains how to "collect your numbers" -- A1c, blood pressure, lipid profile, microalbumin, and eye exam -- and then take appropriate action to become and stay as healthy as you possibly can be. Lots of emphasis is placed on setting priorities, rather than trying to tackle everything at once.
There's even a sample chart based on our "Diabetes Health Account" table. I'm not sayin' you won't need to buy the book after reading this piece, but hey... it's pretty informative, if I do say so myself :)
Book News Flash from the blogosphere:
Christine Miserandino, who blogs about living with "invisible" chronic illness at ButYouDontLookSick.com has posted a
She recently discovered my blog, DiabetesMine.com, and has this to say:
"I found her writing to be easy to read and interesting (an unusual combination when reading health related writing) ... I was intrigued to see how her writing would read in book form.
"I was happy to read her book and have it contain the same style and 'voice' as her blog. This book has straight to the point facts that everyone dealing with diabetes and blood sugar issues should know.
"Dr. Richard Jackson and Amy Tenderich walk you through how to understand each of the five factors/ tests and then help you create a personalized treatment plan for optimum blood-glucose control, heart health, and general diabetes management and well being.
"I know that many of these medical tests, and numbers can be overwhelming, complicated and scary to many, especially to new patients dealing with this disease.
"This book helps you not only be more knowledgeable, but lets you know small things that you can do to improve your life, i.e.: exercise, food, and diet. It is great to have these two authors work together. You receive the medical expertise of a doctor, combined with the real life experience of a patient."
Best of all, she concludes her review this way:
"At 224 pages, this paperback book was a quick, but well worth the read. I would recommend this book for anyone you know who is living with diabetes or loving someone with diabetes." (!)
Check out the book on Amazon, or order it with a free trial pack of ExtendBar slow-release glucose snacks HERE.
A few more endorsements for Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes to share with you today. Needless to say, we are delighted that so many prominent diabetes educators and fellow authors find our book useful and easy to read!
“The positive, person-focused approach presented by the authors was refreshing! Rather than starting with
‘What is diabetes?’ this book immediately guides the reader through concrete ways of identifying their very own practical
strategy for ‘taking on’ their diabetes. The authors use numerical test results as an objective approach for guiding the person with diabetes to identify what self-care behaviors to tackle first. Self-care success is measured by using these test results to define personal actions that produce outcomes of health and well-being. This book is a must read for people with diabetes, their families, and all health professionals who need to understand that diabetes is about self-care!”
— Malinda M. Peeples, Immediate Past President, AADE (American Association of Diabetes Educators)
“Worrying about diabetes complications is stressful. But keeping the results of 5 essential tests in healthy ranges
should vastly reduce your risks of developing any complications. This book will help you to understand these tests and what your goals for the results should be, as well as what you can do to get them into healthy ranges. This should reduce your stress, and that, in turn, should make your diabetes easier to control.”
— Gretchen Becker, author of The First Year® - Type 2 Diabetes and
Prediabetes
“Even those without diabetes will wish they had it just so they can use this book. Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes is written by two great authors espousing a positive and practical approach to better health. This book allows even the mathematically inept to understand their lab values and what area of their health is most important to work on. Targets for the five critical areas: A1c, blood pressure, lipids, microalbumin, and the eye exam, how to achieve them, and what order is most important to work on are presented.”
— John Walsh, PA, CDE, and Ruth Roberts, MA, authors of Pumping Insulin and Using Insulin
Last week, Forbes reported that a good half of the estimated 21 million adult Americans with diabetes now rate themselves as having only "fair" or "poor" health, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
"People with diabetes are three times more likely than others to say their health is flagging," the CDC report found. Which means, of course, that a great number of people in this country are headed toward a future of diabetes-related complications, including blindness, kidney failure, cardiovascular disease, and lower extremity amputation. Ouch!!
Why should this be the case in a World Power nation like the USA? Poor quality and in many cases poor availability of health care are certainly issues. And perhaps more importantly, the fact that our health care system is focused on the treatment end, rather than prevention. HMOs stand more to gain from patients once they've developed kidney disease or retnal damage than they do from educational programs to prevent these problems. Crazy!
This brings me to why we wrote this book. Dr. Jackson, in his decades of patient interaction at the legendary Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, has seen thousands of patients struggling to get a handle on their health with diabetes. He has a lot of practical advice for them, starting with determining and understanding their own biggest health risks -- a simple matter of taking 5 standard lab tests.
Trouble is, many of the patients Dr. Jackson sees have had diabetes for years and have already developed complications by the time they've either discovered Joslin's program, or gathered the motivation to go there. The damage to their bodies is already done.
How much better off these people would've been if they'd just had some very basic health instruction early on! Why not package this golden preventative advice into a book that will serve as a hands-on guide?
Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes helps you chart and understand the 5 most important values (your personal “Essential Health Factors”) for living a long
and healthy life with diabetes. That makes them pretty darn important! They are:
· Hemoglobin A1c—a measure of the average amount of glucose in your blood over the last several months
· Blood Pressure—a quick, painless armband test to determine the force of blood flow through your body
· Lipid Profile—a group of blood tests measuring your cholesterol and triglycerides (another type of fat), which is used to determine your risk of heart attack or stroke
·
Microalbumin—a
urine test that is an early indicator of kidney damage
· Eye Exam—a yearly exam that consists of dilating your pupil, allowing the doctor to see the back of your eye
Now, be honest. If you have diabetes, or are newly diagnosed, when was the last time you had these tests? Do you know the result numbers? Do you know what they mean? One thing you can be sure of: If everyone tracked and acted on these values regularly, those depressing CDC results -- as reported by Forbes -- would look a lot rosier today.
Stay tuned for more tidbits from the book.
