How do you take time out to review how you’re doing with Diabetes? Community members share their experiences

Most of us are aware that diabetes is a condition that affects all our body's functions. This can lead to anxieties and concerns quite naturally. Even those who know their diabetes well take time out to regularly review how to reduce their risks of complications. Hear how our Healthshare Diabetes community view their diabetes and how communicating with others with diabetes as well as with healthcare professionals empowers them to manage potential medical conditions and prevent long-term damage. I think it's important to share your concerns and experiences with people whether related to diabetes or again to diet or physical activity and it's good to share my experiences with other people and also to hear back from them because this is how we learn, this is how we improve as we go forward. Perversely I would say actually, as the weather improves, you find yourselves doing a lot more varied activity and also a lot more generally I find, particularly on the social and activity side of things, which can be tricky both in terms of managing your health if you have diabetes or or a similar condition and also in terms of just actually the general stress levels it can be a bit jarring to go from weekends of keeping yourself busy and being relaxed to suddenly having a full calendar so it's a challenge this needs to be controlled but that's the stress that comes with it is one of the things that I'm not looking forward to. Maybe some people have issues with their eyes some kidney problems some people have heart problems and sometimes you don't, I wouldn't know if I have a problem with heart problems where to approach, even if I go to my doctor. Doctors, I'm sorry to say this, but doctors do not have all the, they just want to see the patient in five minutes and out. And I'll be at that time heart patient, kidney patients or whatever patients need a proper care and say okay you will be seen by this, this, this. So maybe this healthcare section would be able to provide the right information so as diabetes you know that you will reduce your complication and you will have the quality of life. But it's quite nice to talk to somebody who has the same thing and goes through the same experiences because if you don't have it you don't really understand it. And I think the other thing that is useful is that people have secret inside tips and tricks that you might not know about that is quite good for talking to other people and recommending and things like traveling and time zones and what you do with your insulin needles when you get on an aeroplane and, I don't know, things like that. We are here to listen because you may have some fears or had some new experience which you may want to discuss and bringing them out in the open, telling us about it will help you and it will help us as health professionals approach with someone else and develop understanding of every individual's challenges, and collectively for a population, it would mean better health. And often, discussing that early would also allow your health professional, be it a nurse or a doctor or a dietitian, to signpost you the right way. And sometimes, even signpost your own general practitioner to make some referrals onwards if needed. So go, go ahead, have that chat with your healthcare worker. So go ahead and join us so that we can together develop a vibrant, engaged, enthusiastic community which instills good quality information, a confident information which can touch, address, and amend many future lives. The Healthshare Diabetes Community helps you to gather information from a wide variety of sources. By knowing your condition from a wide-angled viewpoint, we hope you'll be better able to understand those symptoms. You can't quite put your finger on, but know there's something not quite right. And be confident to talk about them. Join the conversation on healthshare.com with us, and you may be able to be signposted to the place that you need to be. Or maybe you can actually share your experiences how you tackled reducing your risks of diabetes complications.