Health Break: Diabetes Toolkit: How to find the right resources for you 

Camille: Welcome to Health Break by UPMC Health Plan, your quick guide to health, wellness, and how to make the most of your health insurance plan. I’m your host, Dr. Camille Clarke-Smith. This is your…Health Break.

Managing diabetes can feel like navigating a maze. Each person’s journey is unique and filled with their own personal challenges.

Today Dr. Ellen Beckjord takes a Health Break to shed some light on tools and resources that can help make your personal diabetes journey a smoother, more personalized one. 

Welcome, and thank you for joining us today, Dr. Ellen.

Ellen: Thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here.

Camille: Great. So first question: Could you talk a little bit about why managing diabetes is so important?

Ellen: Absolutely. So managing diabetes is important because not too long ago, several organizations decided that type 2 diabetes is actually a reversible chronic condition. It’s something that people can manage, and sort of eliminate, from their health profile.

But even if that’s not something that happens, even if folks who have type 2 diabetes aren’t able to get the condition into remission, it is a very manageable condition.

Managing any chronic condition, including diabetes, can improve your quality of life. It can help to reduce the time and resources that you have to spend on health care. And it can also reduce the likelihood of complications or serious health consequences that can happen down the road. So overall, managing diabetes, which can be done through changing some of your health behaviors, making sure that you’re up to date on your recommended care with your health care providers, can really reduce the impact that it has on your overall quality of life.

Camille: Let’s go a little bit deeper about managing. And you mentioned that it’s managing and it can help with the complications, but what are some of the best ways to manage diabetes?

Ellen: Some of the best ways to manage diabetes are the things that fall into the big buckets that we think about when it comes to health: What are you eating? How are you moving? Who are you spending time with? How are you sleeping? You know, most things fall into one of those four buckets.

With diabetes, having a healthy diet that helps you control your blood sugar is really important. That said, it’s not always easy. Eating and food can be really complicated. So most people find that some support from a health care provider or a health coach to help them understand how they can best use nutrition to manage their diabetes is really important.

Second is how you move. So walking is one of the best exercises people can do. It’s not always accessible to everyone, but it’s more accessible to people sometimes than other forms of exercise like running or biking or swimming might be. Any form of physical activity is really important.

I mentioned who you spend your time with. Social connections and our mental health are really important. There’s lots of ways to improve your mental health and making sure that your mental health is good is important when you’re managing a chronic condition like diabetes, because it does take effort and it can sometimes be discouraging. So you want to make sure that you’ve got good support around you and that you’re doing things that help you take care of yourself and keep your outlook as positive as possible.

And then sleep. Sleep is something that’s important for our health overall. Most of us don’t get enough sleep. Sometimes we’re using our smartphones till really late in the day. That can interrupt your sleep, so if you can disengage from screens for at least an hour before it’s time to go to sleep, that can help.

And then making sure that you have the right level of health care, that you have a primary care provider. You may, if you’re living with diabetes, benefit from also having an endocrinologist. Having a good primary care provider can help make sure that your diabetes is managed optimally with respect to both treatments that you may want to consider using to manage your diabetes, and preventive tests that you should have on a regular basis to make sure that any complications from diabetes are caught early enough to get intervention to make sure that they don’t become a real problem.

Camille: You’re basically stating the healthy lifestyle changes are important, even for diabetics.

Ellen: Absolutely, absolutely. It’s never too late to change your lifestyle and to try to become healthier. But I want to underscore that all those things I mentioned—how you eat, how you move, who you spend time with, sleep—they all take time. And folks can be so pressed for time. You know, it’s easy to rattle those things off, but I want to underscore that it’s not always easy to do them. And for some people, having the time to do them is one of the biggest challenges. There’s a lot of inequity that we can find when it comes to—do people have adequate time to attend to their health? So it can definitely be a challenge.

Camille: We interviewed Dr. Severance earlier and he said social support is really important, like finding that buddy system who can help push—especially [with] chronic conditions like this. He also mentioned it potentially might lead to depression and it’s difficult to get going. So, you know, mentioning that, can you share what tools or resources are available to people with diabetes?

Ellen: Absolutely. I’m glad that you mentioned social support. The expected prevalence of diabetes in America by 2030 is 15 percent. So if you’re someone who’s living with diabetes, you’re definitely not alone. There’s different kinds of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes that’s typically diagnosed really early in life is more rare. But there’s a big group of those folks, too. And so finding someone who’s living with a similar chronic condition can be really helpful. There are more people who are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and that typically happens a little bit later in life, but finding a support group or the ability to connect with other people who are living with the same chronic condition can be helpful.

At UPMC Health Plan, we have so many services that are really tailored to meet the needs of our member population who live with diabetes. Our members have access to certified diabetes care and education specialists who can work with them over the phone or over video sessions to help them understand how to manage their medications, to potentially take advantage of things they might be eligible for, like continuous glucose monitoring, which can really be a game changer for people living with diabetes so they can really kind of understand how their blood sugar responds to what they eat and how they move, and they can get even better at controlling their blood sugar. We have diabetes health coaching programs. We just have a whole lot of services and really well-designed benefits to support the needs that people with type two diabetes have.

So certainly if you’re a UPMC Health Plan member, contacting us to learn about what those services are is something I definitely recommend. But for anyone living with type 2 diabetes, just any support that you can get from other people living with the condition—any support you can get to improve your diet, improve your physical activity, decrease or manage your stress levels, and to make sure that you understand the latest and greatest that that medical care has to offer you as someone living with diabetes. It’s a large population. So there’s lots of great research and discovery happening all the time when it comes to diabetes. And it’s important to advocate for yourself with your medical team to make sure that you are getting access to what’s available to you to manage this condition the best that you can.

Camille: So you mentioned that there’s a lot of resources and variety. Can you share how someone might find the right resource for them?

Ellen: Absolutely. And it’s worth pointing out that everyone’s journey is unique and the experience that people have living with diabetes will change over time. So it’s good that there are so many resources because people can really get kind of a personalized plan that works for them, and that plan can change over time as their needs change.

So that’s the good news, that we can really take a personalized approach to helping people best manage their diabetes and live as healthy and well as possible with diabetes. But because there are so many resources, sometimes that that takes some assistance.

So if you’re UPMC Health Plan member calling in to Member Services or getting connected to one of our care managers, all of our folks are really well-educated on diabetes. So one way to find what’s best for you is to raise your hand and ask for help from the good people at the Health Plan, who can help guide and direct you.

There’s also tons of information that’s publicly available. Sometimes that can be a little bit overwhelming, so I would say talking to your primary care provider to get information about resources that might be available. Reputable organizations like the American Diabetes Association, they have lots of information on their website for folks who are living with diabetes.

And I would also say, don’t give up. You know, what’s going to work best for one person might not be what works best for someone else. And even for one person, what works best right now might not be what they need six months from now, a year from now. So ask for help or immerse yourself in the available information about what you might be able to do to better manage your condition. And keep trying things until you find something that works for you, and don’t be discouraged if something that was working for a while doesn’t appeal to you anymore or you’re looking for something new. There’s going to be something else that you can find on your health journey to help you.

Camille: I want to repeat that. Don’t give up and don’t be discouraged. I love that. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Ellen, for joining us on today’s “Health Break.”

Ellen: It was my pleasure. Thank you so much.

Camille: Call a diabetes care manager for a personalized plan and get started with the Diabetes Management program. Visit the show notes to learn more.

Find show notes and more information at upmchealthplan.com/podcast. Join us as we continue exploring health, wellness, and how to make the most of your health insurance plan in the next episode of Health Break.

This podcast is for informational and educational purposes. It is not medical care or advice. Individuals in need of medical care should consult their personal care provider. Views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of UPMC Health Plan and its employees. Find show notes and more information at upmchealthplan.com/podcast. Join us as we continue exploring health, wellness, and how to make the most of your health insurance plan in the next episode of Health Break.