Diabetes Care
Diabetes care involves a partnership between doctor and patient to manage this lifelong condition. Although there is no cure for diabetes, it can be successfully managed. Many people with diabetes live healthy and active lives.
ECHN physicians who treat patients with diabetes include endocrinologists, internists, and family physicians.
ECHN offers a highly regarded Diabetes Self-Management Program that can help you manage your diabetes day to day. Most insurance companies cover the cost of the program.
"Living With Diabetes" is the ECHN Diabetes Self-Management Program's monthly newsletter. You can download the latest issues here (PDF format):
About Our Diabetes Self-Management Program
ECHN's Diabetes Self-Management Program offers comprehensive, patient-focused diabetes services for people with diabetes and their significant others.
Instruction is offered to adults with type 1, type 2, or gestational diabetes (diabetes that occurs during pregnancy). Day and evening classes are offered. Program participants and their families are empowered, through education and information, to:
- respond to medical emergencies, such as hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia
- perform blood glucose monitoring
- work within sick-day guidelines
- develop a meal plan and exercise program that meet an individual's needs
- understand medications and their actions and side effects
- choose specific diabetes supplies, such as meters, test strips, and insulin pens
- manage stress
- adjust to the emotional impact of diabetes
Helping individuals control their diabetes and their health through education, diet, exercise and/or medication is the goal of the program. Studies have proven that the long-term success of diabetes therapy is strongly dependent on the education of the patient.
ECHN's program is nationally certified by the American Diabetes Association and has been honored by the American Diabetes Association as one of its "most influential partners" in the fight against diabetes throughout Connecticut.
For more information on diabetes or the self-management program, call ECHN's diabetes educators Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at 860.647.6824.
Read an article about diabetes and its warning signs.
Symptoms of Diabetes
Diabetes is a serious illness in which the body either does not make enough insulin or is unable to use it properly. Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas, is needed for sugar (glucose) to enter body cells and be converted to energy, to utilize proteins, and to store fats. Without treatment, diabetes will cause a build-up of sugars and fats in the bloodstream. This can lead to heart disease, strokes, kidney failure, blindness, and amputations.
Frequently there are no symptoms with type 2 diabetes, the most common form. However, if you do experience any of these symptoms, you should tell your doctor:
- Extreme thirst
- Frequent urination
- Unexplained weight loss
- Unusual hunger
- Nausea
- Numbness or tingling in hands or feet
- Impotence (in men)
- Fatigue or weakness
- Infections that are slow to heal
- Blurred vision
Risk Factors for Diabetes
The American Diabetes Association recommends that everyone aged 45 and older should be screened every 3 years for diabetes. If any other of the following risk factors is also present, consider screening earlier and more often. The screen is a simple fasting blood test. ECHN offers many convenient locations for blood tests.
Risk factors include:
- Family history of diabetes (parent or sibling)
- History of gestational diabetes or delivery of babies over 9 pounds
- Race/ethnicity (being an African-American, Hispanic American, Asian-American, Native American, or Pacific Islander)
- Age 45 or older
- Obesity (20% over desired body weight or more)
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol and/or triglyceride level