SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – Managing diabetes involves not only monitoring blood sugar levels, but also lifestyle changes such as eating a healthy diet, exercising, and taking prescribed medications. In this Avera Medical Minute, one patient shares how wearable technology has made managing her diabetes easier.
Regular meetings with Dr. Jonathan Banworth are important for patient Alan Meister to maintain his health.
Alan has type 2 diabetes. This means his body has difficulty controlling blood sugar levels.
“Type 2 diabetes is common in adulthood,” says Dr. Jonathan Banworth, a family physician. “Then patients develop resistance to the insulin they produce. This usually happens when blood sugar levels get too high for a long period of time and the body has to ramp up extra insulin production, causing the body to produce less insulin. This is due to decreased sensitivity to insulin.
To track his blood sugar levels, Alan was recently recommended to use a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), a wearable technology that tracks blood sugar levels.
“In many cases, these patients can check their blood sugar levels in real time by wearing a sensor on their arm and holding a monitor over the sensor, which tells them what their blood sugar level is at that moment,” Banworth said. .
“This really made a huge difference for me in having continuous readings and knowing what I needed to do to adjust accordingly,” says Avera patient Alan Meister he said.
This device is another option patients use to manage their diabetes.
“Historically, we had traditional blood sugar monitors that required patients to prick their finger and take a blood test to check their blood sugar levels, but now they provide a snapshot of their blood sugar levels at that point in time. But we're a little limited in knowing how their blood sugar levels are changing throughout the day,” Banworth said.
Alan says the CGM has made it much easier to check his blood sugar levels. Additionally, with the help of Avera's team, we learned how food affects blood sugar levels.
“When your blood sugar levels are high, eat something like protein, because protein tends to compete with carbohydrates and sugars when it enters your body, which helps lower your blood sugar levels quickly,” says Meister. he said. “They help make things easier to understand. In all the years I've struggled with sugar issues, no one has ever really sat down and explained to me which foods are what. What do you do, how long does it take for you to figure it out, etc. Your system and how the system reacts to it.”
“As part of our patients' diabetes care, we are starting to work more with multidisciplinary teams,” Banworth said. “We involve pharmacists to adjust insulin doses, and we also have diabetes educators, which are usually nurses who work directly with patients and educate them more about the disease process.” I am a nutritionist who deals with meals.
And that led to improvement in Alan's health.
“What a huge change in just over a month,” Messiter said.
“Recently, I think Alan has had great success with continuous blood sugar monitoring. That in itself is a great opportunity for him and other patients to see how their diet is affecting their blood. “I think that's what motivates us to be able to do that because we measure sugar in real time, so that's reflected in the numbers,” Banworth said.
To learn more about diabetes and treatment options, visit avera.org/medicalnuts.
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