Saturday, September 30, 2006

Diabetes, with sugar on top

Ok, so how do I tell the dudes that ignoring your diabetes can cause erectile dysfunction? I'm thinking, well, people who are sanguine about their big toe being chopped off are hard to motivate. Not so, says the husband unit. It's all about the blood flow. So, if I can find a way to discuss this in an individual setting -( In a class, I'd be fine. No one is going to accuse me or misunderstand me in a class setting. I hope.)- if I could find a way to, uhm, bring it up to them, I could perhaps improve their insulin compliance. But no one in my department does, so I don't have anyone to learn how from.

Complicating this is the low literacy/ low vision of these clients. In general they can't or won't read, so I'm dragging the vcr around the hospital as it is. If they were readers, well, there could be a hand out. Or I could send them to the ADA website. But if they were readers, they probably would be compliant diabetics, and I don't get those clients. (Now there's a dream job: compliant diabetics. They'd stroll in, display their fully filled out blood sugar diaries, trade recipes with me for low fat, low sodium,tasty stuff, you know. Then we'd discuss the best way to work in daily exercise, and then they'd stroll back out, their blood sugar better than mine. I don't think compliant diabetics have a clinic, sadly.)

So, here's the question, if they don't care, why should I?

1 comment:

AlisonH said...

My brother is one of those compliant, well-read, exercising diabetics, your dream patient. I'm sitting here thinking, if only HE could show up and go talk to those guys. New Jersey's a bit of a hike, though. You got any guys on staff, especially anyone with diabetes, that could take the time to go talk to them? If not, I would put it in terms of "your wife will appreciate..."