• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Another pointer for the doctrine of small numbers

H

hanadr

Expert
Messages
8,157
Dislikes
soaps on telly and people talking about the characters as if they were real.
As I often do, I was googling for information on diabetes. I came across the following statement in a paper( sorry I forgot to take the reference)
>>Patients with type 2 diabetes become less responsive over time to one agent alone and frequently require combination therapy to adequately control their disease.<<
This says to me that if you eat much reduced carbs and take less medicine, you will delay the progression of the condition. Eat what you like and take loads of medicine to cover it, becomes
Eat what you like, take loads of medicine, make the condition worse and probably put on masses of weight.
I'm planning to keep my diabetes where it is and not have ANY progression, whatever my doctor has predicted
 
hanadr said:
As I often do, I was googling for information on diabetes. I came across the following statement in a paper( sorry I forgot to take the reference)
>>Patients with type 2 diabetes become less responsive over time to one agent alone and frequently require combination therapy to adequately control their disease.<<
This says to me that if you eat much reduced carbs and take less medicine, you will delay the progression of the condition. Eat what you like and take loads of medicine to cover it, becomes
Eat what you like, take loads of medicine, make the condition worse and probably put on masses of weight.
I'm planning to keep my diabetes where it is and not have ANY progression, whatever my doctor has predicted
Click to expand...

One of the problems (pointed out in some Medscape CMEs among other places) is that many doctors are playing followup.

They do nothing until your A1c reaches 8 (used to be the point at which medication was started here) then wait until your A1c goes back up to 8 again before adding more medications.

The alternative view is to aggressively bring BG down into normal territory ASAP then make **** sure it stays there.

Initially meds or even insulin are required but with proper control and a decent diet many people are able to reduce or even eliminate the meds using feedback from their meters to modify their diet, which makes the procedure initially more expensive but cost effective in the long term (test strips plus decreasing medication bills vs. increasing med costs, amputations, dialysis etc.)

You only need to look at the rise in complications between A1c of 6 or less and 8 or more to see the sense of this approach.

Unless of course you are an NHS accountant or work for DUK.
 
It's obvious that the doctors don't think that a diabetic can achieve and maintain blood glucose at non-diabetic levels. You only need to look at the flow charts for treatment produced by the PCTs. I know that many diabetics don't care about their treatment and just go on as before. Some don't even bother to take the medicine.. However, there is a growing band of us, who like to keep tight control, non-diabetic numbers and ourselves in charge. I wish this could be written down somewhere in qa treatment plan( like a special needs child's individual education plan in school).
that would make it easier for some of us to have at least 2 test strips per day and only an annual review with nurse, doctor or clinic. It would free up health care workers time for the patients who cannot or will not take charge of themselves and put equipment in the hands of those who want it.
Perhaps it would even buy some copies of Bernstein's book for the medical schools and Taubes's book for the dietetics schools.
 
I imagine the prejudice displayed by health professionals is based on their experience of the general populace.

It's worth bearing in mind we on this forum are a relative minority of people who have an understanding and grip on the problem.

For every one of us I suspect there are 50 people who ignore the fact they have Diabetes or don't have the will to control it.

Hence, all of their advice and logic is based on controlling the majority, and they don't really know how to cope with the people that have a handle on their problem. As a result our quality of care is compromised because they are constantly trying to move us toward their comfort zone, as opposed to using our approach as a springboard to even better health.

Edited Sugarless Sue.........Moderator.
 
This is like the educaation system, which concentrates on setting standards for the children of average ability, helps the ones who get left behind, because they are pretty obviously in need and pays lip-service to facilities for the "gifted and talented".
 
The Governor said:
Hence, all of their advice and logic is based on controlling the majority, and they don't really know how to cope with the people that have a handle on their problem. As a result our quality of care is compromised because they are constantly trying to move us toward their comfort zone, as opposed to using our approach as a springboard to even better health.
Click to expand...

Nicely put, and agreed.
 
Back
Top