What is the relationship between smoking and diabetes problems?

Smoking and diabetes are a dangerous combination. Smoking increases your risk of diabetes-related problems. If you quit smoking, you will reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, kidney disease and nerve disease. Your cholesterol levels and blood pressure can improve. It will also improve blood flow. If you smoke, talk to your doctor to help you quit.

What else I can do to prevent diabetes problems?

You can take many steps to prevent diabetes. For example, to prevent foot problems should check them each day. Ask your health care team if you should take low-dose aspirin daily to reduce the risk of heart disease. To avoid eye problems, consult your eye doctor once a year for you to do a complete eye exam with dilated.

Make sure your doctor will analyze the level of protein in the urine every year. At least once a year, your doctor should check the level of creatinine in the blood and also do a complete foot exam. See page 12 to learn what you can do daily to stay healthy despite having diabetes. See pages 13 to 17 for a list of other things that your healthcare provider should check to ensure good diabetes control.

What to do to control diabetes?

Control of diabetes is a team effort. You will be working with a group of medical professionals, including medical, nurse specialist in diabetes education, a dietitian and diabetes education pharmacist, among others. You are the most important team member. See the Diabetes Destroyer Program

Take control of your diabetes by learning what to do to ensure good control of the disease.

What you should do every day to control diabetes (see page 12).
What you should do your provider whenever consideration (see pages 13 and 14).

What you or your healthcare provider should do at least once or twice a year (see pages 15 to 17).

Keep a daily record of the test results of blood glucose. Make copies of the daily log sheet for diabetes found on pages 20 and 21 of this booklet. This information will help you know if you are achieving their desired blood glucose levels.

If most of the time maintaining good control of glucose levels in the blood, cholesterol and blood pressure, can prevent or delay problems caused by diabetes.