Hassled by nurse

[tapestretcher]

I am considering changing to another practice.My GP has not tested for neuropathy or pulses in my ankles for about 18 months.Nor has the "podiatrist" I have visited thrice,after GP passed me onto this nailclipper.I give up and await the wheelchair.Disgraceful.

 

[Trinkwasser]

It sounds like your weight loss and all that extra exercise may have considerably reduced your insulin resistance. That would mean that the insulin your body produces is being used more efficiently. One of the problems with gliclazide is that it signals your pancreas to produce extra insulin, whether the insulin is needed or not. It could be that you no longer need quite as big a boost and could manage on a lower gliclazide dose.

Agreed, this is quite common. You're doing better than your doctor expected. Probably if you were to drop some of those breakfast carbs you could come off the glic altogether, at least you need to reduce the dose. Run your numbers past your doctor, but he might tell you to eat more carbs to feed the pills instead. They usually expect patients to get rapidly worse, not better!

In the meantime carry some glucose tabs or orange juice for safety's sake

 

[berliner]

Hello,

A very interesting discussion for me as I've had 46 years of being diabetic, albeit Type 1. I find that several people's experience of certain health care workers (not just nurses but doctors too in my own experience) ring all too lamentably true. By the way I'm not saying this because I've got a thing against either doctors or nurses. Both my brother and my daughter are GPs and I admire them both.

I think after all these years of experience as a Type 1 patient that perhaps it's a bit unrealistic to expect GPs or ordinary practice nurses to know everything we'd like them to know about diabetes, whether it's Type 1 or Type 2. There are just too many other ailments falling within their remit that it's unreasonable to expect them to know everything there is to know about diabetes -- it's a massive subject. Expertise is something we should expect of most Diabetic Specialist Nurses, however, and certainly of any hospital doctor who claims to be a "diabetologist" or similar. Otherwise they're acting under false pretences. And by the way, I've had my share of bad experiences with hospital consultants many years ago who went under the heading of Consultant Physician (surely a generalist's title if ever there was one!) who headed diabetic clinics yet couldn't answer my questions when I asked them. Small wonder I gave up on diabetic clinics for so many years. This was a mistake to some extent as I only caught up with new developments in treatment a bit late. And I think (but I'm not completely sure) that consultants heading diabetic clinics these days tend to have more expertise.

What do you think? Good luck to Bunty and the rest of you. Yours, Berliner.