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Education support

J

Jrouseuk

Newbie
Messages
2
Type of diabetes
Family member
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi all,
My other half has had type 1 diabetes since he was 11 and is now 36.
He is getting increasingly frustrated by the lack of education opportunities as he is apparently an 'old hat' at diabetes now and it would appear from a lot of his nurses/ doctors that he should be good enough by now with his control. Bottom line is he would like to continue to learn and be educated on the latest thought / course etc but we don't seem to have that much available to us. We're based in Chichester in West Sussex and although we have a diabetes centre education courses are either cancelled or he is not eligible as he is not a new type 1 diabetic.
I would really appreciate any support / guidance / courses/ tools that anyone on the forum is aware of that we could go on and support him in continuing to monitor and try to better his control for the rest of his life. Were pretty disappointed by what has been offered by our NHS trust so any guidance on how to access these resources would be appreciated. We know a lot about the courses that are available but are having trouble getting onto them locally.
Thanks so much for any help you can provide.
 
Is there a DAFNE course available there ? I think these are nationwide and are specifically for T1 and teach carb counting etc. Ask your DSN.
 
Although I'm biased, I think regularly using this website both asking questions and reading the experience of others is possibly one of the best ways to keep up to date. I'm not aware myself of any specific NHS courses apart from DAFNE (which can vary a lot in quality). I participated for a while in a local NHS PCT Diabetes group and found it quite poor. I've learned a lot over the last few years from this site and one or two others; I also keep up to date by visiting NHS Diabetes and NICE sites and follow links to new papers.
 
I have taken insulin for 30 years.

I have never taken any diabetes-related educational course.

I do not need to 'count carbs'.

My management of my condition could scarcely be better. This management is a function of three things:

1. I eat rye bread steadily from first thing until 4.00pm. (This keeps my blood sugar stable for 24 hours: it doesn't yo-yo as it used to do.) But I eat other stuff too. And I eat very well indeed.

2. Rather than take insulin in an attempt to match the food I intend to eat, I take pretty much the same insulin each day and I 'feed' that insulin. This means that when I go to bed each night, the insulin within me is all but exhausted in its effect. (I take a small amount of long-acting insulin last thing to stop my blood sugar rising overnight.) So I sleep safely.

3. I test my blood sugar quite a lot - on average, once per waking hour - mostly using the highly economical visually read strips Betachek Visual or Glucoflex-R. (They can be cut with scissors, making them even more economical.)
 
There is an excel list of education on this site I suspect that it is not kept up to date
http://www.diabetes-education.net/index.php?link=education&page=centres
The course at Chichester which I assume is the one that keeps getting cancelled is called SAILING and there is a listing for a JIGSAW course in Portsmouth and another course further away in Brighton.
I'm not in the UK and don't know how it works but I do know of others who are able to get referred for care to more distant hospitals.
There doesn't seem to be an actual DAFNE course nearer than Kent or London!
http://www.dafne.uk.com/uploads/223/documents/PU07.007, Version 26 - DAFNE Today - January 2014.pdf

The online course and book mentioned above are both very good. Diabetes UK also has a booklet about insulin adjustment.
https://shop.diabetes.org.uk/store/literature/information-books/carbs-count-e-book.aspx
 
Hi,
a few years ago i did a understanding diabetes course with the open university:)
 
DAFNE is excellent if you get the opportunity to go on the course, but the book dtennant9 mentions earlier is a fantastic book for type 1's.
 
I think we've deviated from the original topic
If you want to do another University Diabetes course. This is a free MOOC (massive online open course)
]
Diabetes - a Global Challenge
This diabetes course will give you the newest state of the art updates on diabetes research in the fields of clinical aspects of diabetes and regulation of insulin secretion, epidemiology of diabetes, heritability of diabetes, genetic aspects of diabetes, prevention of diabetes and insulin resistance, molecular insulin resistance, cellular aspects of diabetes, physiological regulation of blood glucose, type 1 diabetes and stem cell research in diabetes.
Each section will be covered by world leading professors (to be announced) in the specific areas
Click to expand...
You have to register with Coursera (you'll have to google as if I link I think I may be using my Coursera login details)

The course claims to be aimed 'at students who are on an advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate level with a background in biology, medicine or life sciences. Experienced health care providers and others interested in the newest diabetes research and knowledge can also follow the course'
But anyone can join in . You can just watch some of the videos etc without doing any of the assignments or quizzes and many courses aren't at the level they are claimed to be (they vary immensely in difficulty
 
Wow thanks so much everyone lots of helpful hints and tips I'm going to check them all out and also buy that book it sounds fans. Thank you so much for you're help. It's my first post on here so will definitely be posting and reading more here :)



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