Care Opinion

Me and Type 2 Diabetes

Posted By Haider36

"Me and Type 2 Diabetes"

About: Forth Valley Royal Hospital / Diabetes Forth Valley Royal Hospital / Dietetics

(as a service user),

I have been a diabetic for over 7 years and I was  was getting progressively worse at managing my condition.

My medication was continually increasing and I was depressed around food, especially at social events.

My weight was increasing and I felt guilty and ashamed.

So, earlier this year I made an appointment with the well being clinic in Stirling who gave me a health check.

I spoke to them about my diabetes and weight problem.

They put me in touch with the local NHS team of dieticians, who were running a 6 week course on diabetes.

Diabetes Explained

Armed with practical weekly knowledge on the subject, I felt that I could face my fears and talk to my diabetic nurse at my GP's much more confidently about things like my blood test results and my medication.

My turn around moment was learning about carbohydrates.

I learned that I could eat well, still be full and keep my diabetes controlled at the same time.

After this course I felt it was important for others in our Asian community to learn about diabetes as it's so common amongst us.

We organised a course to run for a group of 10 ladies who were diabetic or on the borderline.

This course has just finished and the feedback is amazing.

They hadn't been aware of the details of diabetes, and were struggling about what they could or could not eat and didn't understand their medication.

The interaction with Joanna and her explanations to our questions made us feel we could be open about our personal struggles with this condition.

Our discussions with each other during this time has helped us to be able to understand how to manage our condition better, together.

With the help of the NHS team we hope to continue to help each other and have set SMARTER goals and targets, by organising a walking group, healthy cooking lessons and joining the weight management programme in the New Year.

We already have group of ladies in our community ready for the another Diabetic course in January 2025

Thank you to everyone at the Diabetic team, especially Joanna and Tracy for setting this up for us.

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Responses

Response from Jennifer Hynes, Dietetic Team Lead, Dietetics, NHS Forth Valley yesterday
Jennifer Hynes
Dietetic Team Lead, Dietetics,
NHS Forth Valley

Submitted on 22/11/2024 at 16:56
Published on Care Opinion at 16:56

Hi Haider36,

Thank you so much for taking the time to write your lovely, detailed story which I have just shared with Joanna, Tracy, Andrea, and Jordee, our amazing Type 2 diabetes education team. They are very happy to hear how confident you are in looking after your own diabetes now. We couldn't hope for more from our sessions.

We are so grateful to you for introducing us to the women in your group. Joanna has learned as much from you as you have from her, and we will use this learning as we work with more groups of people for whom English is not their first language, and with people from a range of cultural backgrounds.

I'm delighted to hear that you are all supporting each other and your plans for the New Year sound fantastic.

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