Our recent Divabetic Baking Party’s Peak 10 Skin giveaway winner, Sandra is a tech-savvy diva who relies on several diabetes self-care tools to live her best life!
“I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2006”, says Sandra. “After 6 years of injections, I was put on an insulin pump and then later got a Continuous Glucose Monitor.”
Many people with type 1 diabetes use insulin pumps. Insulin pumps work by delivering a basal, or set, rate of insulin through a tube called a cannula.
The insulin pump is attached to a thin plastic tube (an infusion set) with a cannula (like a needle but soft) at the end of which insulin passes. This cannula is inserted under the skin, usually on the abdomen. The cannula is changed every two days. Your doctor works with you to determine the amount of insulin needed each day. Insulin pumps can also deliver an insulin bolus.
A Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) is a wearable sensor that automatically measures glucose levels 24 hours a day. A thin, disposable needle called a sensor stays under your skin. The sensor is removed and changed every few days. Glucose readings are provided at specific intervals, every five minutes or so. It also shows how your glucose levels are trending in the form of a trend arrow. You can tell if your glucose level is rising or dropping and treat yourself accordingly.
“My current pump communicates with the CGM and automatically adjusts my insulin when my glucose readings are out of range, she adds.
“Thank goodness for technology! It has made my diabetes easier to manage, and I can be more discreet. (no more finger sticks or insulin syringes!).”
Since Sandra participated in our Baking Party, we asked her about her sweet tooth.
” I still watch what I eat (I read the nutrition label for everything I eat) and take the dog for walks twice a day (4 miles total), but I do NOT deprive myself of dessert.”
We love her attitude!
Looking for a fun way to socialize without putting your diabetes wellness at risk? Do you need a little help staying on track with your diabetes self-care?
Back by popular demand! The happy healthcare host, Mr. Divabetic, hosts this free, fun Virtual Mother’s Day-themed Baking Party with special guests, Stacey Harris, aka The Diabetic Pastry Chef and Divabetic Image & Style Advisor Catherine Schuller, on Thursday, April 28, 2022, 7 – 8:30 PM, EST on Zoom.
Win gifts courtesy of Arthel Neville Design FABULOUS East/West Tote, Dr. Remedy’s Enriched Nail Care gift set, Best-Selling Author Tonya Kappes‘s Camper Cozy Mystery, Walden Farms Zero Calories, Zero Net Carbs Salad Dressings, and Peak 10Skin’s Save My Sole Foot Rescue Cream during Mr. Divabetic’s random drawings. You must be present at our Baking Party to enter our gift drawings to win.
Over 150 people registered for our last Divabetic Baking Party on Zoom, so don’t miss out!
In honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re sharing this special performance by our friend pianist Rohan DeSilva of Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune.
We’d like to encourage you to make time for yourself and your diabetes health. You cannot do everything for everyone else and nothing for yourself. Making time for yourself and your diabetes health is an act of self-love. Learning to accept a diabetes diagnosis isn’t easy either. It takes time, patience, and support. For many people, acceptance starts with loving themselves enough to treat themselves with tending loving care. How do you practice self-love as someone living with diabetes? Do you tell yourself I love you? Do you smile when you look in the mirror?
People high in self-love nourish themselves daily through healthy activities, like walks, meditation, sleep, intimacy, and healthy social interactions. When you genuinely love yourself, you create a mindset of acceptance.
Claude Debussy started writing the piano piece Clair de Lune in 1890 when he was just 28, but it wasn’t published for another 15 years! The title means ‘Moonlight’ and the piece is actually part of the four-movement work Suite Bergamasque.
Among Rohan De Silva’s awards is the best accompanist special prize at the ninth International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. He performed at the White House in 2007 for President George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth, and in 2012 with Itzhak Perlman for President Barak Obama and Shimon Peres. He has also appeared on television on The Tonight Show with Midori; and on radio stations WQXR, WNYC, and WNCN, as well as the Berlin Radio, Japan’s NHK, and CNN’s Showbiz Today, Millenium Grammy’s 2000. De Silva has recorded on the DGG, CBS/Sony Classical, Collins Classics, and BMG labels. Rohan De Silva holds BM and MM degrees from Juilliard where he studied piano with Martin Canin and chamber music with Felix Galimir.
Hearing you’ve just been diagnosed with diabetes can be difficult. And painful. Still, February’s Divabetic podcast guest, Fran Carpentier, describes her experience like a scene from a Fellini movie.
The Brooklyn-born media maven was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age fourteen. Fran remembers the weeks before her diagnosis, “having rapid weight loss, unquenchable thirst, and exhaustion. it was bad.”Although her type 1 diabetes diagnosis was life-changing, Fran admits that her Italian mother, Stella, provided some much-needed yet unintended comic relief in the doctor’s office. “Naturally, I was scared and very nervous,” Fran recalls. “However, when the doctor uttered the diagnosis—’Frances has diabetes‘— my mother fainted and collapsed onto the floor. Her sister, my Aunt Elizabeth, and I had to pick her up. We kept fanning my mom while Dr. Handelsman—a renowned diabetologist of the time—attempted to reassure her about my diagnosis. First, he tried to calm down my mother by telling her that I was fortunate to be diagnosed when I was and not forty years earlier. He went on to explain that the reason I was ‘lucky’ was because today we had insulin; a few decades earlier, I’d be dead. When my mother heard the word ‘dead,’ she collapsed and fainted again.”
The doctor pulled Fran aside and said, “I usually put a newly diagnosed child with juvenile diabetes [which is what type 1 was called in those days] in the hospital for a week.” Back in 1969, which is when Fran was diagnosed, hospitalization for diabetes was pretty typical. Dr. Handelsman continued, “But I can tell that, if I put you in the hospital, I would need at least two beds—one for you, and one for your mother.”
The good doctor added, “So, instead of sending you to the hospital, my nurse will teach you how to give yourself insulin injections, thenI’m going to send you home. Come back tomorrow and we’ll teach you more about how your daily life will be from now on.”
The Carpentier family’s theatrics continued after they got home from the doctor’s office. “That same evening, my mother’s ten sisters came over to our house to ‘mourn’ me,” says Fran. “To this day, I blame their reaction on the ignorance and fear that was associated with diabetes then. Sadly, a lot of ignorance and fear arestill prevalent today.”
If all that extra drama seems almost too much to handle, then you don’t know Fran, who went on to explain, “Later on in bed that first night, I told myself that God must have sent diabetes to me for a reason. Somehow, thatoutlookserved to motivate me in managing my diabetesfor the past fifty years.”
She adds, “I think I had enough of a sense of self to not be ashamed of my condition. I spent a lot of time in the early days allaying my parents’ fears.”
For the past fifty years, Fran Carpentier has been an outspoken diabetes advocate, a passionate fundraiser, and a Divabetic inspiration in her personal and professional life.
For close to three decades, Fran worked as the Senior Editor at Parade, the national Sunday newspapermagazine that, during her tenure, reached more than 70 million readers every week. Fran had the opportunity to meet celebrities, best-selling authors, thought leaders, leading doctors, and top scientists in diabetes. “As a journalist, I had direct access that got me in front of as many diabetes experts as possible. Then, every November, I would oversee an article on diabetes in the Sunday issue. Our goal was to share with our millions of readers what was new in diabetes and where everyone—including people living with diabetes, their families, their friends, their co-workers—could find hope.”
In 2006, I met Fran Carpentier for the first time when she attended Divabetic Makeover Your Diabetes national outreach program at Gotham Hall in New York City. At the time, she was still working for Parade. She remembers attending our ‘Glam More, Fear Less’style event offering one-on-one diabetes education with free makeover services as “the fun and fabulous.” In addition, she says, “The men and women at the Divabetic program had really great energy.”
Hear more of Fran’s funny and fascinating memories of living with type 1 diabetes on Divabetic’s February podcast.
This morning, I found this old Divabetic card in a stack of papers. “Denial’s Not My Style’ was the second phrase I came up with after ‘Sugar’s the Bitch. Not Me’ back in 2003.
We used it as one of the station names in the Makeover Maze at our national outreach program, Divabetic – Makeover Your Diabetes (2005 – 2008), and on limited edition Divabetic branded t-shirts.
The Makeover Maze consisted of six different diabetes care and education stations. One diabetes self-care topic per station. Complimentary mini massages, makeup application, and image consultation areas surrounded the Makeover Maze.
Divabetic’s ‘Denial’s Not My Style’ station offers one-on-one education on the ABC’s of diabetes. The ABCs of diabetes stand for: A —the A1C test, which measures average blood sugar over 2 to 3 months. B —blood pressure, the force of blood flow inside blood vessels. C —cholesterol, is a group of blood fats that affect the risk of heart attack or stroke.
The ‘Sweet Inspirations‘ station focuses on goal setting help. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation
The ‘Glam More, Fear Less’ station focuses on our diabetes affects our personal appearance. From our teeth to our skin, to our feet and our hair, what you see in the mirror can reflect your self-care. Did you know people with diabetes are more likely to have a condition called alopecia areata? With alopecia, the immune system attacks the hair follicles, leading to patches of hair loss on the head and on other parts of the body. Some people with diabetes may experience thinning hair or hair loss. The primary causes of hair loss are mismanaged blood sugar levels, emotional and physical stress, and hormone imbalances.
The ‘Tunnel of Love’focuses on sex, and intimacy issues related to diabetes. Women with diabetes have can experience low sexual desire and response, vaginal dryness, and painful sex can be caused by nerve damage, reduced blood flow to the genitals, and hormonal changes. Men with diabetes may face the inability to have an erection. Damage to the vascular system can reduce blood flow.
The ‘Grab Green And Go’ station focuses on nutrition, creating personalized meal plans, and our relationship to food. Sometimes it’s not what you’re eating, it’s what’s eating you that’s important to your diabetes health too.
And finally, ‘The Twist And Shout’ station focuses on fun ways to exercise. Staving off boredom by adding variety to how your workout is a great way to stick to a routine. Exercise variation is an important factor when designing an exercise program, with many benefits when you change exercises every so often, such as increased performance and decreased injury risk.
The back of Divabetic’s Denial’s Not My Style card asks two questions: Describe how you initially felt about being diagnosed (in one word). And, Describe how you feel about living with diabetes today (using one word).
We posted everyone’s answers on the walls of our diabetes outreach events for everyone to see.
I am so proud of Divabetic’s ongoing efforts over the past 19 years to promote a new attitude about living with diabetes. Although we are not currently presenting live outreach events, we continue to produce monthly podcasts and virtual programs on Zoom.
Divabetic Podcasts & Virtual Programs
Divabetic’s latest monthly podcast is available on-demand and features music from Teddy Pendergrass‘s album, Life Is A Song Worth Singing,and guests: Patricia Addie-Gentle RN, CDCES, Build Jake’s Place Executive Director Arthur Anston, and Yoga For Diabetes Author and Founder Rachel Zinman.
Looking for a fun way to socialize without putting your diabetes wellness at risk? Do you need a little help staying on track with your diabetes self-care?
Join the happy healthcare host, Mr. Divabetic for Divabetic’s upcoming free, fun Virtual Valentines-themed Baking Party on Zoom with special guest, Stacey Harris aka The Diabetic Pastry Chefon Wednesday, February 9, 7 – 8:30 PM, EST.
During this virtual Baking Party on Zoom,The Diabetic Pastry Chefwill prepare a Valentine’s Day Sugar-Free Dessert recipe and share expert baking tips for substituting sugar substitutes and flours in your favorite recipes.
Over 150 people registered for our last two Divabetic Baking Parties on Zoom so don’t miss out!
“Usually, my first thought in the morning is what’s my blood sugar?” says our friend Rachel Zinman, who has been living with type 1 diabetes for thirteen years. After that, the Yoga For Diabetes author tells herself, “I have to get up, get my meter and check my blood sugar levels.”
Before she adopted diabetes psychologist Mark HeymanCDCES’s “diabetes might be challenging, but I’ve got this” motto, Rachel viewed the numbers on her meter as judgments. Now, she sees her morning blood sugar levels more or less as just numbers. As a result, she doesn’t take them so personally.
“Working with my diabetes educator taught me to manage my diabetes in terms of a balance beam rather than a tightrope,” she admits.
Now, Rachel shifts her mindset when she experiences high or low blood sugars. “I don’t think I will fall off a tightrope. I’ve learned I’ve got room to change things and open up my range like I’m on a balance beam. That has really changed how I feel. I feel better. I feel like I have a lot more freedom with food and insulin.”
She confesses she’s blown away that she can enjoy her favorite breakfast food, avocado toast with normal blood sugars!
Rachel shares a guided meditation on January’s Divabetic podcast scheduled for Tuesday, January 11, 2022, with music by Teddy Pendergrass, as part of our New Year’s tradition to help center listeners’ minds, bodies, and souls.
Click HEREto read the three things that help Rachel Zinman start her day with a positive mind frame.
Whether you’re focused on losing weight or want to add a little extra sparkle into your daily diabetes self-care, we’ve got you covered with this year’s DivabeticHoliday Gift Guide 2021. We believe in thoughtful gifts that bring a little happiness and good health into your life.
Our friend, Rachel Zinmanis an internationally renowned yoga teacher and writer. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2008. She started her Yoga For Diabetes blog to share with the diabetes online community how yoga has helped her manage diabetes.
“As far as Yoga Mats go you can’t go past a Manduka mat, Rachel says.
Durable, eco-friendly, and ultra-dense cushioning for superior stability and joint protection. Mandukahas a range of mats that are specific to a personal practice. If you need more grip, something eco-friendly, or a mat with a line down the center to guide you with alignment – they’ve got it!
New to yoga? Manduka offers two Foundation mats that provide an ideal combination of cushioning, durability, and performance at excellent value.
According to research, yoga therapy increases the number of insulin receptors and increases the proportion of receptor binding in patients with type 2 diabetes. It improves insulin kinetics by reducing fasting insulin levels, shifting the peak insulin level to the left, and by normalizing the insulin-to-glucose ratio. Read More
“I’ve been teaching and sharing on Manduka mats for years and it’s the preferred mat in many yoga studios so they have a proven track record too,” Rachel adds.
Rachel Zinman is absolutely passionate about Yoga, its true meaning, and its message. She first came across Yoga at the age of 17 and has never looked back! In her book, Yoga for Diabetes, Rachel shares her personal journey and her hard-won wisdom gained from her own experience of yoga and diabetes.
“If you are at all open or curious to learn about an ancient holistic way of healing and supporting the body, this book is for you. Zinman is clearly an expert and looks so glowingly healthy at 50 years old, one may wonder just how much benefit we too can get from incorporating some yoga into our lives.”—Diabetes Daily
For information on Rachel Zinman’s yoga classes, workshops, retreats, and training are designed to lead you step by step to the total understanding of Your Self visit: Rachel Zinman Yoga.
Our friend, Yoga For Diabetes Author Rachel Zinman shares a guided mediation on Divabetic’s popular podcast. Check out Diabetes Late Inspired by Aaliyah with Patricia Addie-Gentle RN, CDE, Pendulum Therapeutics CEO, and Co-Founder Colleen Cutcliffe, Ph. D., (the maker of Pendulum Glucose Control), Virginia Valentine, APRN, BC-ADM, CDE, FAADE, Dr. Darren Wayne from MealBetix and featuring music from Aaliyah’s Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number album courtesy of SONY Music.
The Queen of Hip Hop, Mary J. Blige sings these words in her new self-empowering song, “Good Morning Gorgeous”. Do you tell yourself that you are beautiful each day? I bet you don’t, but maybe you should. What would happen if you did? Take a moment to appreciate your curves, the way your body is solid and sure with strength in some places or sensuous with softness in others. End quiet moment you spend appreciating is a gift to you. Good thoughts become good feelings and feeling good on the inside is expressed on the outside, too.
Kind and gentle self-talk has helped Mary J. Blige overcome many obstacles in her life. She is not living with diabetes but she had a rough childhood. Her father, a war veteran who suffered from PTSD, left when she was just a young girl leaving the young Mary and her two siblings in the hands of an alcoholic mother. She was sexually abused by a family friend at the age of five. She turned to alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity to deal with the pain of her experiences.
“We numb ourselves with drugs and alcohol and people and shopping and shit, to cover up what’s really going on inside,” she said in an interview with Self.
Her resilience like her fame has grown over the years.
“People are watching,” she said to Self. “So much painful, embarrassing, public stuff has happened from the time I came out in this music industry. This stuff happens so that we can talk.”
Loving the body that you have and celebrating it makes you want to take care of it better inside and out, and all of that beauty just grows and grows. If you say it and hear it enough times I bet you’ll begin to believe it.
Enjoy Mary J. Blige’s song, “Good Morning, Gorgeous!” We believe in YOU!
Need a boost? Join us tomorrow night for Divabetic’s free Holiday-themed Baking Party with the Diabetic Pastry Chefon Thursday, December 9, 2021, at 7- 7:30 PM. EST.
We will be hosting two raffles during our virtual program. First, we will be giving away a beautiful Splenda Gift Basket filled with different Splenda products for you and your loved ones to enjoy. Then, Divabetic Image & Style Advisor, Catherine Schuller will raffle off a gift from Gem Desire. Catherine is the newest Brand Ambassador for Gem Desire, a curated jewelry brand at affordable prices. You must be present during our virtual program to qualify for the random drawings.
Adele’s weight loss journey is inspiring because her goal isn’t a number on the scale. Instead, it is embracing a healthier way of life.
“It was because of my anxiety,” she told British Vogue. “Working out, I would just feel better.” The singer also said that “it was never about losing weight. It was always about becoming strong and giving myself as much time every day without my phone. I got quite addicted to it.”
Adele started making headlines with her weight loss at the end of 2019.
Adele said that during quarantine, she worked out three times a day: “So I do my weights in the morning, then I normally hike, or I box in the afternoon, and then I go and do my cardio at night,” reports Vogue.
“I did it for myself and not anyone else. So why would I ever share it? I don’t find it fascinating. It’s my body.”
Adele told British Vogue when asked why she didn’t share her weight loss journey on social media.
Adele also confirmed that any rumors suggesting she lost weight by dieting are false. “No intermittent fasting. Nothing. If anything, I eat more than I used to because I work out so hard,” she told British Vogue.
She feels confident enough about herself and her new lifestyle to joke about it.
In 2020, she joked about her weight loss in her opening SNL monologue. “I know I look really, really different since you last saw me,” Adele said. “But actually, because of all the Covid restrictions…I had to travel light, and I could only bring half of me, and this is the half I chose.”
he 15-time Grammy winner released her first single off her fourth studio album, Easy On Me, this past week.
Adele’s album, “25” has sold six million copies in the US and become the 20th album to sell at least a million copies in a single week in the Nielsen era. It is the largest selling album of 2015 in total, surpassing the sales of Taylor Swift’s 1989.
Divabetic podcast guests include Poet Lorraine Brooks, Mama Rose Marie, the Charlie’s Angels of Outreach (Patricia Addie-Gentle RN, CDCES and MaryAnn Nicolay MEd, NDTR), Jennifer Jacobs, Dana Collins Carr and Cindy Lou, who is living with type 2 diabetes from Kentucky.
Throughout the podcast we will be playing selected cuts from “25” courtesy of SONY Music.
Diabetes Late Nite is a fast-paced, full-filled hour of diabetes education and wellness advice that encourages listeners to “laugh a little, learn a lot.”
Plus-size Fashion and Travel Blogger, LGBTQ+ Influencer Alysse Dalessandro Santiago shares how seeking out a weight-neutral doctor’s approach helped her improve her diabetes self-care on October’s Divabetic Podcast with music fromCarly Simon.
Alysse says, “It’s taken me a long time to be my own healthcare advocate and challenge the pervasive narrative around plus-size or larger-bodied people living with type 2 diabetes.”
Alysse told her doctor, “I am here for diabetes management. I understand that you have been trained to look at my weight as an indicator of my health. But I look at my A1C as an indicator of my health, so can we focus on that?”
She encourages other plus-size and larger-bodied people to advocate for their diabetes health. “Doctors are there to help and care for you. Their job is to care for you as an individual. When a doctor looks at you as a number on a chart or on the scale, they’re not looking at you as an individual. So if you don’t feel like they are listening to you, then you need to leave and find someone else.”
Alysse’s proactive approach to finding a weight-neutral doctor paid off! Finally, she can focus on the tools she needs to have tighter blood sugar management than the scale numbers. One self-care tool that she loves is the FreeStyle Libre Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) System. Alysse says the FreeStyle Libre has helped her to lower her A1C from 11 to a 7. But that’s not all! An added bonus of using the FreeStyle Libre for Alysse has been avoiding triggers related to her binge eating disorder.
“The FreeStyle Libre holds me accountable and tunes me in.” She adds, “The FreeStyle Libre’s alarms make me say, Hey, I emotionally feel like I want to eat, but physically I’m not actually hungry. My blood glucose levels are high, and I should not be eating right now. I’m emotionally hungry. What else can I do to self-soothe?“
The “weight-neutral” movement: a therapeutic approach to improving the health of individuals by focusing less on BMI and more on lifestyle behaviors. Studies suggest weight cycling is more strongly linked with specific adverse health outcomes than having an obese BMI. If your doctor’s appointments start and end with a phrase like: “You need to lose weight,” maybe it’s time to find a new doctor.
*The A1C test—also known as the hemoglobin A1C or HbA1c test—is a simple blood test that measures your average blood sugar levels over the past 3 months.
Plus-Size Fashion and Tavel Blogger, LGBTQ+ Influencer, Alysse Dalessandro Santiago guests on Divabetic’s October podcast with musical inspiration from Carly Simon. Hosted by Mr. Divabetic.
Looking for a fun way to socialize without putting your diabetes wellness at risk? Do you need a little help staying on track with your diabetes self-care?
In honor of National Diabetes Awareness Month, the happy healthcare host, Mr. Divabetic presents its Once In a Blue Moon program. This free, fun-filled, informative hour of diabetes outreach is intended to rejuvenate and reignite your attitude. The happy healthcare host, Mr. Divabetic, Maryann Nicolay MEd, NDTR, Wendy Satin Rapaport LCSW, PsyD, and Divabetic Image & Style Advisor Catherine Schuller share expert ways to expand food choices, add sparkle, and boost spirits.
So have some fun spending time with us during our Once in A Blue Moon program on Thursday, November 11, 2021, 7 – 8 PM EST on Zoom.
We’re thrilled to announce that the reigning Ms. Texas Plus U.S United, Andrea Sledge, has chosen Divabetic as her platform for this year’s pageant.
Andrea told us, “I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2011. My diagnosis was a complete surprise. I had attended a health fair at work, and they took my blood sugar, and the nurse immediately asked me to sit, asked me if I felt ok and then told me my blood sugar was 325.” She continues, “I had been seeing a doctor for regular physicals, but he never said a word to me even though I have a family history of diabetes. My maternal grandmother and both of my paternal grandparents suffered from diabetes.”
“Once I heard the words ‘you are diabetic,’ I was in denial! I went into a deep depression., I immediately thought of myself as less than. So I searched for an outlet that would help me get back to ME. I started competing in pageants and using diabetes and diabetes awareness as my platform. It made me so much stronger because then I took control of how it made me feel and the stigma surrounding diabetes. I wanted people to understand that being diabetic does not look nor define you as a person. You just have to do some things differently, but you can still be social. I did pretty well for several years until 2019 when I was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy.”
Diabetic retinopathyis when high blood sugar levels cause damage to blood vessels in the retina. These blood vessels can swell and leak. Or they can close, stopping blood from passing through. Sometimes abnormal new blood vessels grow on the retina. All of these changes can steal your vision.
Diabetic retinopathy is best diagnosed with a comprehensive dilated eye exam. For this exam, drops placed in your eyes widen (dilate) your pupils to allow your doctor a better view inside your eyes. The drops can cause your close vision to blur until they wear off, several hours later.
During the exam, your eye doctor will look for abnormalities in the inside and outside parts of your eyes.
There are two main stages of diabetic eye disease.
NPDR (non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy)
This is the early stage of diabetic eye disease. Many people with diabetes have it.
With NPDR, tiny blood vessels leak, making the retina swell. When the macula swells, it is called macular edema. This is the most common reason why people with diabetes lose their vision.
Also with NPDR, blood vessels in the retina can close off. This is called macular ischemia. When that happens, blood cannot reach the macula. In addition, sometimes tiny particles called exudates can form in the retina. These can affect your vision too.
If you have NPDR, your vision will be blurry.
PDR (proliferative diabetic retinopathy)
PDR is the more advanced stage of diabetic eye disease. It happens when the retina starts growing new blood vessels. This is called neovascularization. You might see a few dark floaters. If they bleed a lot, it might block all vision.
These new blood vessels can form scar tissue. Scar tissue can cause problems with the macula or lead to a detached retina.
PDR is very serious and can steal both your central and peripheral (side) vision.
If you have proliferative diabetic retinopathy or macular edema, you’ll need prompt treatment. Depending on the specific problems with your retina, options might include: injecting medications into your eyes, photocoagulation, panretinal photocoagulation, and vitrectomy.
While treatment can slow or stop the progression of diabetic retinopathy, it’s not a cure. Future retinal damage and vision loss are still possible.
Even after treatment for diabetic retinopathy, you’ll need regular eye exams. At some point, you might need additional treatment.
“I was totally blind for about a year after my surgery. I have now lost my vision in my left eye, but I am still pressing on,” says Andrea. But, she adds, “I chose not to quit the pageant because I can inspire others to push past the curve balls life throws at us.”
The mission of the U.S. United Pageant is to promote health, fitness, and inner beauty among women and children of all ethnic groups while producing positive role models for the community; to develop women that will promote self-confidence, self-worth, moral, academic, and social support for our youth; and to publicly recognize women who have obtained personal, professional and community achievements.
“Following your organization, Divabetic, over the years has really helped me in so many ways,” says Andrea. “One thing I do that makes me feel better when I am feeling down is put on makeup!! I also practice meditation to keep myself centered. In addition, I believe mediation aids me in achieving better health. It helps me manage my blood pressure and stress which is no good for anyone, but surely not a diabetic.”
Regular eye care can have a life-changing impact on preserving your vision. Eye diseases are common and can go unnoticed for a long time and/or have no symptoms at first. A comprehensive dilated eye exam by an optometrist or ophthalmologist is necessary to find eye diseases in the early stages when treatment to prevent vision loss is most effective.
This August, we’re focusing on eye health, and vision loss related to diabetes with two leading doctors(an Optometrist and a Retina Specialist, and Surgeon)and two diabetes advocates, and musical inspiration from TLC.
Did you know August is Vision & Learning Month?
The goal of this national observance is to help increase awareness among parents and educators on the prevalence of undiagnosed or misdiagnosed vision problems.
Diabetes is the leading cause of new cases of blindness in adults. This is a growing problem as the number of people living with diabetes increases, so does the number of people with impaired vision. Diabetes can cause a disease of the eye called diabetic retinopathy (DR). In its early stages, you may not notice any symptoms or changes to your eyesight, and you cannot tell that this condition is damaging your eyes. If it is not detected and treated in a timely manner, your vision can be damaged permanently.
Among adults aged 45 and over with diagnosed diabetes, 9.2% had vision loss due to cataracts, 4.1% had vision loss due to diabetic retinopathy, 2.2% had vision loss due to macular degeneration, and 2.1% had vision loss due to glaucoma.
Guests include Sherrol Reynolds M.D. (Associate Professor and Chief of Advanced Ophthalmic Care at the Nova Southeastern University College of Optometry, President of the National Optometric Association (NOA)), Rishi Singh, M.D. (Retina Specialist and Staff Surgeon at the Cole Eye Institute, Cleveland Clinic), Andrea Sledge, Natalie Karabel,Patricia Addie-Gentle RN, CDCES. Hosted by Max ‘Mr. Divabetic’ Szadek.
Throughout our podcast, we are featuring music from TLC’s CrazySexyCool albumcourtesy of SONY Music.
