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Since my June visit to clinic this year, I've been struggling with a variety of other health problems among which, depression and anxiety have featured prominently. Obviously, this has made management of my diabetes a lot more challenging than usual and it's fair to say that I've had a lot of short-term spikes and quite a few hypos along the way. Yesterday at clinic it came to my diabetologist's attention that my recent HbA1c was 5.9% (41 in new units) and in his words this was 'dangerously low' and I was running the risk of a major hypoglycaemic episode.
However, instead of asking why for the first in the 10 years that I've been under his care, I'd presented with a 'bad' HbA1c and discussing strategies with me to help me get things back under control amid my other health problems, he launched into a tirade about how I was "running things too tightly" and that the clinic would take my pump away if I didn't ease up on things. It wasn't just what he said, it was the way he said it. I was left feeling like I'd been severely reprimanded and that my pleas about how other health issues were complicating things had just fallen on deaf ears. In fact, when I asked him to acknowledge the role that these other factors were/are playing in the recent demise of my control, he simply responded by saying that as a diabetic specialist those issues were not of his concern and he was only interested in me running my blood sugars higher than I have been doing.
I went looking for a sympathetic ear and the benefit of his specialist knowledge and instead just left feeling extremely distressed and entirely unheard. I'm half tempted to make an official complaint but as there isn't really any malpractice involved, I don't think it would get me anywhere.
However, instead of asking why for the first in the 10 years that I've been under his care, I'd presented with a 'bad' HbA1c and discussing strategies with me to help me get things back under control amid my other health problems, he launched into a tirade about how I was "running things too tightly" and that the clinic would take my pump away if I didn't ease up on things. It wasn't just what he said, it was the way he said it. I was left feeling like I'd been severely reprimanded and that my pleas about how other health issues were complicating things had just fallen on deaf ears. In fact, when I asked him to acknowledge the role that these other factors were/are playing in the recent demise of my control, he simply responded by saying that as a diabetic specialist those issues were not of his concern and he was only interested in me running my blood sugars higher than I have been doing.
I went looking for a sympathetic ear and the benefit of his specialist knowledge and instead just left feeling extremely distressed and entirely unheard. I'm half tempted to make an official complaint but as there isn't really any malpractice involved, I don't think it would get me anywhere.