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Preparing for your Diabetes-Focused Visit
For people living with diabetes, keeping track of your diabetes information and any questions that arise can be challenging. It is a complex disease, and good diabetes care requires preparation, organization and follow up by both patients and their primary care providers*.
In response to this challenge, the Canadian Diabetes Association has developed a checklist to help you be best prepared for visits with your doctor to manage your diabetes. Your diabetes visits will be more effective if you are prepared and know what to expect. For example, having laboratory tests done before your visit will help your doctor and diabetes healthcare team focus on next steps in the organization of your diabetes care.
Seeing your doctor only for diabetes-related issues will allow sufficient time for you and your doctor to discuss your management of the disease and any problems or changes you are experiencing. Ideally, you should have four appointments each year dedicated solely to diabetes care, during which your blood pressure should be checked, your feet examined and your medications reviewed, among other things. This checklist outlines a systematic approach to your regular diabetes visits that will help keep your “diabetes compass” pointing in a healthy, complication-free direction.
* Primary care providers are those who are “orchestrating” your diabetes care. This could be a family doctor, a specialist or a nurse practitioner.
Related Resources:
Are you preparing for a diabetes check up? Use the checklist to help you get ready for your visit.
If you are living with diabetes, it is important that you understand your risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Here is a Cardiovascular Self-Assessment Tool that can be used during your diabetes-focused visits to help identify your risk factors for heart attack or stroke.
Diabetes Dialogue - Taking charge of your health by being informed is vital to reducing your risk of complications from diabetes. Subscribe today to Diabetes Dialogue, the official magazine of the Canadian Diabetes Association and the country’s leading diabetes magazine since 1977.
Cardiovascular Disease Risk Assessment and Reduction - a quick reference of key elements from the 2008 Clinical Practice Guidelines regarding cardiovascular risk factors and recommendations for reducing cardiovascular risk.