PLAY BALL: Betsy Manis, director of the Center for Diabetes Management at Hillcrest Medical Center uses a variety of games to help clients learn about diabetes and have fun during class. The beach ball she is holding has questions about diabetes on it.
KENDRA BLEVINS for GTR Newspapers
The role of the dietician and diabetes care has changed from the strict diabetic diets to a more balanced type of lifestyle management. “Be a coach not a nag,” says Betsy Manis, director of the Center for Diabetes Management at Hillcrest Medical Center, 1265 S. Utica Ave. “We want to be diabetes coaches,” she says.
Diabetes is affecting 24 million people in the United States and 6 million are unaware that they have it. It’s a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin. Some signs of diabetes are frequent urination, tingling hands and feet, constant thirst, fatigue, constant hunger, weakness, weight loss or gain, infections that keep coming back or heal slowly, dry skin and blurred vision. If a patient is diagnosed with diabetes the doctor will refer them to a diabetes education class in order to learn how to manage the disease.
The Hillcrest Center for Diabetes Management offers self-management training that is physician referred. After the clients’ insurance is approved, the Center for Diabetes Management calls them up and works on a schedule that’s convenient for the client. Classes are given weekly at one of six locations throughout the Tulsa area. The classes are small with six to 12 students and during class the students don’t just sit there and listen to a lecture, says Manis. The classes have fun games and activities with a dietician and a certified nurse diabetes educator who are ready to answer questions and to teach how to live well with diabetes. The classes are confidential and private, she says.
The American Diabetes Association recognizes Hillcrest’s diabetes education service as meeting the national standards for diabetes self-management. Hillcrest physicians also recognize the power of self-management, even saying that it’s better than any diabetes medication available, says Manis.
“You have the power to manage it,” she says. “It doesn’t have power over you. You can lead a healthy life with diabetes management.”
Many of her clients have increased their confidence through self-management; they have achieved results and discovered new ways of eating. It’s not about restricting foods; it’s about eating them in moderation. Diabetics don’t have to give up their favorite foods anymore, she says.
Clients are consistently improving their condition through the education training.
“We have new research, new medications, but it boils down to the balance between food, activity and medication,” says Manis.
New research is revealing the myths behind diabetes care, and the diabetes education class aims to bust these myths:
The myths are:
Taking insulin means my diabetes is worse.
High blood sugar means I have done something wrong.
There is not much you can do about sexual problems when you have diabetes.
If a person with diabetes is taking diabetes pills, they don’t have to watch what they eat.
Healthy food doesn’t cause high blood sugar.
Diabetes education is only for people with bad diabetes.
Insulin shots hurt a lot.
All fat people are unhealthy and all thin people are healthy.
People with diabetes can’t eat sugar.
If there were anything really wrong with my feet, they would hurt.
But the truth is:
Being physically active is good for the body and state of mind.
Regular medical care is important for staying healthy with diabetes.
Support from others lightens the load of diabetes.
Diabetes can be prevented or delayed by 58 percent with 30 minutes of exercise a day and a 5 to 10 percent weight loss.
Taking care of diabetes is work.
And the facts are:
It is estimated that one in three children born today will develop type 2 diabetes.
Diabetes doubles the risk of depression.
The diabetes epidemic is growing in the U.S and worldwide.
Another troubling statistic the Centers for Disease Control found is that 57 million people have pre-diabetes, which is defined by a pre-meal or fasting blood sugar of 100-125 mg/dl or a blood sugar of 140-200 mg/dl after a meal.
According to an American College of Endocrinology task force, 6 – 10 percent of patients with impaired glucose tolerance develop diabetes each year. The Hillcrest Center for Diabetes Management is addressing this issue with a class for pre-diabetics where clients learn about the risk factors for developing diabetes before it happens, how to make small lifestyle changes that will head off the development of diabetes and how to eat healthy at home.
For more information about the Hillcrest Center for Diabetes Management or the education classes they offer, call (918) 579-3385.
