Living with multiple health problems can complicate things. As a diabetic balancing the levels of carbohydrates, (starches and sugars) with the level of insulin requires thought and discipline. You should always consult your doctor and dietician for specific advice.

People with type 1 diabetes are at greater risk of developing celiac disease. It follows that they will need to manage a diet which controls both conditions. The diets do sit perfectly well together, but it needs careful planning.

In principle the same rules apply to your diet, whatever the problem. As a diabetic you need to eat a well-balanced diet. The one area of difficulty is managing your carbohydrate intake with gluten-free versions. You can find gluten-free carbohydrates in potatoes, rice, wild rice, buckwheat, maize, millet, sago, tapioca, corn flour, soya, polenta, flax, sorghum, linseed, gram flour, cargeenan, urd, channa (chickpea flour), quinoa, arrowroot, codex wheat starch, corn pasta, pure rice noodles, gluten-free pastas are available, as are gluten-free versions of bread.

The principles of planning ahead and the need to be well informed and to take control are exactly the same for celiac disease and diabetes. Confidence grows out of knowing what you can and cannot eat. Instead of tackling the conditions as two sets of restrictions, combine the needs of both. Having both diabetes and celiac disease is unfortunate but it is important to be positive and take control.

Always take a supply of suitable gluten-free carbohydrates and insulin with you. Plan ahead and involve school, friends and other organizations of your needs.

Your doctor may have recently advised you have diabetes. Or you are overweight and you have discovered you may be at risk of diabetes. Others may have a friend or family member who has been diagnosed with the disease. Just what does diabetes mean and how does it affect your lifestyle?

Diabetes means that your blood glucose (often called blood sugar) is too high. Your blood always has some glucose in it because your body needs glucose for energy to keep you going. But too much glucose in the blood isn't good for your health.

How do you get high blood glucose?

Glucose comes from the food you eat and is also made in your liver and muscles. Your blood carries the glucose to all the cells in your body. Insulin is a chemical (a hormone) made by the pancreas. The pancreas releases insulin into the blood. Insulin helps the glucose from food get into your cells. If your body doesn't make enough insulin or if the insulin doesn't work the way it should, glucose can't get into your cells. It stays in your blood instead. Your blood glucose level then gets too high, causing pre-diabetes or diabetes.

What is pre-diabetes?

Pre-diabetes is a condition in which blood glucose levels are higher than normal but are not high enough for a diagnosis of diabetes. People with pre-diabetes are at increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes and for heart disease and stroke. The good news is if you have pre-diabetes, you can reduce your risk of getting diabetes. With modest weight loss and moderate physical activity, you can delay or prevent type 2 diabetes and even return to normal glucose levels.

What are the signs of diabetes?

The signs of diabetes are:

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You may have had one or more of these signs before you found out you had diabetes. Or you may have had no signs at all. A blood test to check your glucose levels will show if you have pre-diabetes or diabetes.

What kind of diabetes do you have?

People can get diabetes at any age. Type 1 diabetes, formerly called juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is usually first diagnosed in children, teenagers, or young adults. In this form of diabetes, the beta cells of the pancreas no longer make insulin because the body's immune system has attacked and destroyed them.

Treatment for type 1 diabetes includes taking insulin shots or using an insulin pump, making wise food choices, being physically active, taking aspirin daily (for some), and controlling blood pressure and cholesterol.

Type 2 diabetes, formerly called adult-onset diabetes or noninsulin-dependent diabetes, is the most common form of diabetes. People can develop type 2 diabetes at any age—even during childhood. This form of diabetes usually begins with insulin resistance, a condition in which fat, muscle, and liver cells do not use insulin properly.

At first, the pancreas keeps up with the added demand by producing more insulin. In time, however, it loses the ability to secrete enough insulin in response to meals. Being overweight and inactive increases the chances of developing type 2 diabetes.

Treatment includes using diabetes medicines, making wise food choices, being physically active, taking aspirin daily, and controlling blood pressure and cholesterol.

Why do you need to take care of your diabetes? After many years, diabetes can lead to serious problems in your eyes, kidneys, nerves, and gums and teeth. But the most serious problem caused by diabetes is heart disease. When you have diabetes, you are more than twice as likely as people without diabetes to have heart disease or a stroke.

If you have diabetes, your risk of a heart attack is the same as someone who has already had a heart attack. Both women and men with diabetes are at risk. You may not even have the typical signs of a heart attack.

You can reduce your risk of developing heart disease by controlling your blood pressure and blood fat levels. If you smoke, talk with your doctor about quitting. Remember that every step toward your goals helps!

Later in this article, we'll tell you how you can try to prevent or delay long-term problems. The best way to take care of your health is to work with your health care team to keep your blood glucose, blood pressure, and cholesterol in your target range.

How is weight loss important?

If you have diabetes and are overweight, even a moderate reduction in weight can have a positive benefit to your health and possibly blood pressure and cholesterol. If you are overweight or obese and don’t have diabetes, you have added risk of developing the disease.

How can I tell if I am overweight?

There are several methods to determine a healthy body weight. The simplest is to measure around your waist. Men who are greater than 94 cm (37 inches) and women who are greater than 80cm (32 inches) are overweight. Another method is the Body Mass Index which takes into account your height, weight and gender. If your BMI is greater than 25 you are considered overweight. If it is greater than 30, you are considered obese.

When I was first diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at the age of 21, I had not given the first thought to living a healthy diabetic lifestyle. As far as I was concerned, a healthy lifestyle was reserved only for fitness junkies and overweight moms.

I didn't know squat about the benefits and overall happiness a healthy lifestyle would lead to. I was perfectly content eating frozen pizza, smoking cigarettes, and binge drinking on a regular basis. After I was diagnosed with diabetes, I had a lengthy discussion with my doctor that resulted in an epiphany, "Everything I love is killing me!"

First, we'll define what I mean by healthy lifestyle. When I asked the question, "What is a healthy lifestyle?” the common answer seemed to be, "Don't smoke, don't drink, eat only vegetables and protein, and make sure to exercise every day."

My first thought was, "You can give that crap right back to the birds." I was 21, loved to party, and absolutely chock full of testosterone.

The ideas, practices, and benefits a healthy lifestyle provided sounded great for managing my diabetes, but I sure didn't like the idea of my social life falling off the face of the planet. Believing in the power of moderation, I made some compromises with my disease:

1. Smoking

I quit smoking cigarettes and only smoked cigars on special occasions such as bachelor parties, Super Bowls, or the birth of my first child. That last part was a joke. After many years of searching, special occasions are the only reason I can find to put nicotine or smoke of any kind in your body.

2. Drinking

For me, this was a big one. I'm not really the type of guy that likes to meet girls at church, and school was not really an option for me, but drinking was all my friends and I did. As a result, drinking alcohol (sadly enough) was a major component of my social life. From that day forward, I laid down some basic rules.

No liquor. Liquor causes severe instability in blood sugar levels, and will cause serious problems. I stick only to beer and wine with a maximum of three drinks. If you monitor your sugar regularly and eat beforehand, you should be able to enjoy a nice night out.

3. Eating

Of the areas available for improvement in my lifestyle, eating was the easiest for me to adapt and overcome. When I learned that protein had a minor effect on my sugar that was good news, any hamburger and steak-loving American would be happy to hear that, but the bad news was that French fries, baked potatoes, and (my favorite) sweet potatoes were off limits. That meant I had to learn to love vegetables.

From that point forward, I began cooking veggies with light butter and cayenne pepper. I know that sounds odd, but I like spicy food. As far as your diet is concerned, for the sake of your happiness, find your favorite spices and seasonings and begin experimenting with healthy foods.

4. Exercise

When it comes to exercising many people (including myself) do not follow through for long enough to see substantial results. Personally, I believe in living an active lifestyle instead of becoming a fitness and free-weight junkie. What worked for me? Basic exercises (lunges, squats, and crunches) in front of the television every morning followed by a 15 minute walk.

Complying with the guidelines I listed above, I'm still able to have a fun, active lifestyle while controlling my diabetes. Finally, I need to say that I'm not a doctor, just a guy with Type 1 Diabetes. The practices I listed worked for me to maintain the young-adult lifestyle that I wanted. You may be different, and understanding your own personality traits is critical to successful moderation and control of your diabetes.

So, after a miserable 10 hours of blood tests it’s confirmed you have hyperglycemia. Well now isn’t the time to sit back and get depressed. Look at the positive side, now you know why you’ve been tired and worn out for all of this time. Diagnosed in 1982 with hyperglycemia it was harder to maintain a steady blood sugar rate. These days with the advanced technology available for instantly checking blood sugar, the disease is easier to manage.

You can now pick up blood sugar monitors that give you instant notification of your blood sugar level. Back in that day it was impossible to monitor this vital information. Now you can cruise down to the nearest Wal-Mart and pick one up off of the shelves.

Sometimes the easiest way to monitor your blood sugar is to stop and reflect on how you are feeling at that particular moment and then check your blood. If you get to a point where you know where your levels are before checking you can recognize the patterns of behavior and adjust your life accordingly. Sure, it’s important to keep your monitor on you but after awhile you’ll automatically recognize the way that you’re feel and be prepared to take the appropriate action prior to getting that familiar sick feeling.

You need to get to a point in your life that you can recognize how you feel and adjust your diet accordingly, then you’ll have the disease whipped. The problem is it takes some “on the job” training to recognize the symptoms and how your body reacts to the amount of sugar in your blood. The only way to get to this point is to train yourself as to the warning signs of a dangerous low blood sugar level. This is not to replace the family doctor’s advice, just be observant of your own body.

We’re not accustomed to this type of behavior so it may take awhile, but don’t give up! Before long you’ll be managing yourself without the pain in your finger from testing your blood.

Stat Medical Hardware, Inc (SMD) was founded in 1988 and is a leader in developing and distributing innovative medical devices. Their emphasis is on lancets, lancing devices and clinical, capillary blood sampling devices.

The Stat-Let Auto Lancets are available in 5 different systems to accomodate your blood sampling necessity. They feature very simple one-step function, non-reuse safety feature. These lancet devices are indivually wrapped, and they are packaged in boxes of 100.

In our home care agency, we use these to test the blood sugar of many of our senior citizens who cannot do their own testing while they are on service with our agency. What's great about these lancets is that you do not have to place them in lancing pens. They are individually wrapped and ready to dispose of when you are finished with testing on your finger.

This type of lancet is innovative because sometimes when you are using a lancet pen device, it is difficult to manipulate. You have to be able to remove the top to the lancing device, place a lancet in the lancing pen, close the pen, make sure the pen is ready to use and then click on your finger to get a blood sample.

This may be difficult for seniors with arthritic problems or deformed fingers related to arthritis. Sometimes people do not want to be bothered with setting up the lancet pen--too much of a hassle.

Now you can help make every test strip count as you can test right the very first time.

The wide-mouth strip quickly sucks on the tiny blood drop, helping 97% of diabetes fill the strip on the very first try. Since you only need a small drop of blood, you won’t have to keep retesting. The system also has over 150 automatic checks to detect and prevent unreliable results.

The ACCU-CHEK Multiclix lancet device is appears to be less painful among leading lancet devices. It also uses a pre-loaded six-lancet drum, saving you time and the need to handle individual lancets. This could help prevent accidental sticking to your finger or elsewhere

You can test from your fingertip, palm, forearm, upper arm, thigh, or calf.

Your test results appear in 5 seconds.

You do need to place a code plate in the machine everytime you open a new blood sugar strip container. But it is easy to place in the machine.

You only need a small blood sample — just 0.6 microliter.

The Accu-Check Aviva has a contoured, ergonomic design with easy-to-hold rubber grips.

You can save results.

**500-value memory. **7, 14 and 30-day averages.

Coming soon: You can download test results to your PC with ACCU-CHEK Compass software or the Diabetes Assistant program, their online log.

The glucometer measures 3.7″H x 2.0″W x 0.9″D; weighing 2.1 oz. with a battery.

I like the fact that this machine automatically comes with the six-drum lancet device. Prevents accidentally sticking yourself when placing a lancet in a lancet pen that normally come with other glucometers.

The comfort of holding the machine should be easy for anyone, including senior citizens.

This is a recently new glucometer which just shows how Roche Labs are really in the forefront of helping diabetes manage glucose testing in a much easier and simple way.

The Aviva does automatically come with the alternative site cap so when you receive your glucometer, you can test anywhere.

What are normal blood sugar levels? Fasting (blood sugar level after not eating for 8 hours) blood sugar should be between 70 milligrams per deciliter to 100 mg/dL. Your blood sugar should not be above 100 at any given time; If it is, this suggests a pre-diabetes condition. A level of 100 - 199 suggests prediabetes. A level over 200 suggests that you have either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes.

There are several steps in lowering your blood sugar. Try the following if you are interested in more normal blood sugar levels.

A. Begin slowly lowering your carbohydrate intake. If you want to get very specific on which foods you can and cannot eat, I recommend the diet as per Dr. Richard Bernstein. He has done all the testing for us and eliminated all foods that had a make up that could not be tracked. After all, if you can't track it, you can't manage it. Also, check out our diabetic recipes page for some delicious low carb meals. If you stick to a pre-calculated amount of carbohydrates per meal, your insulin amounts should be the same every day.

B. Test your blood sugar more frequently. We test from 5 - 10 times per day. If your fingers can take it, the blood sugar readings are imperative to helping understand if the insulin amounts are correct or not. Know your A1C. This test is very revealing as to how you are doing with blood sugar levels and should be under 6.0%.

C. Pay attention to how and when your type of insulin works. For example, before meals, Isobel gets about 2 units of Regular Humalin insulin. This particular insulin is given about 40 minutes before a meal because it takes that long to begin working. Humalog on the other hand is a more fast acting insulin and if given for meals, should only be given about 5 minutes before eating. Check with your doctor or do your own research on your insulin to make sure you are giving it enough time to start working before you eat.

D. Stop snacking and limit yourself to three meals per day. Snacking is habitual and can easily be broken.

The level of blood sugar control predicts the onset and severity of diabetes-related complications for both types of diabetes. This means that if you have diabetes, if you can keep your blood sugar levels as close as possible to normal, you can live a normal life span with few or even no complications at all. A non-diabetic's normal blood sugar range is from 70 - 100. There is no reason why a diabetic can't strive for the same levels.

You might have heard that the many advances occurring with some of the blood glucose meters allow you to perform blood test monitoring on different parts of your body, like the palm, forearm, upper arm, thigh, or even calf.

Because the skin of these other parts of your body contains fewer nerves, testing can feel much more comfortable. This is what is called Alternative Site Testing, or AST.

It's vital to know that while blood from your fingertip can be tested at anytime, there are times when testing from alternative sites isn't ideal. That's why you should get the information about alternative site testing and talk with your doctor prior to your decision of alternative testing.

Let's Go info further detail:

* In comparison with your fingertip, you might see differences in blood sugar results from the palm, forearm, upper arm, thigh, or even calf.

* Blood taken from the fingertip shows changes in blood sugar levels faster than blood taken from the other sites of the body.

* These differences in blood sugar occur because the fingertips have more blood vessels than the alternative sites.

So, alternative site testing is recommended when blood sugar is stable, such as:

* Immediately prior to a meal

* When fasting

* Near bedtime

Times when alternative site testing isn't recommended:

* 2 hours following a meal, when blood sugar values are rising quickly

* After exercise

* When you are ill; as blood sugar values can go quite high

* When you think your blood sugar is incredibly low or falling quickly (hypoglycemia)

* If you have a history of not noticing when you have low blood sugar (hypoglycemia)

* During the peak action time of the basal insulin

* Up to 2 hours after when injecting rapid-acting insulin

* If you check your blood sugar and the blood sugar test doesn't match the way you feel, then you should perform a fingertip to confirm your result. If the fingertip result however doesn't reflect the way you feel either, contact your doctor.

* Don't change your course of action based on just 1 blood sugar result.

* Your success in getting an adequate drop of blood from alternate sites will deviate. Depending on the meter you pick, you might wish to try different approved sites until you find the one that works for you.

When you select a site, stick with it. Do not perform and then try on your calf and then the next time on your forearm. If you try out on the forearm, always check out on the forearm. The only exception should be fingertip tests.

What is it?

Diabetes is a disease where the body cannot properly produce or use insulin. Insulin is a hormone that turns the foods you eat into energy. If your body cannot turn food into energy, not only will your cells be starved for energy, you will also build up glucose (sugar) in your blood. This will lead you to have "high blood glucose levels." Over years, the high blood glucose level can damage major organs like your heart, eyes, and kidneys.

Statistics:

According to the American Diabetes Association, there are 18.2 million people in the United States with Diabetes. That's 6.3% of the population.

Diabetes is found in both men and women over the age of 20. About one-third of Diabetics do not know that they have it. African Americans are 1.6 times more likely to have diabetes than Whites. Latinos are 1.5 times more likely to have diabetes than Whites.

Type 1 is most often found in children, with the peak incidence at puberty. Type 2 is generally found in adults, however an alarmingly growing number of children are now diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes. One of the main causes is overweight.

Types:

1. Type 1 Diabetes is caused by a total lack of insulin that, in turn, produces high blood glucose levels. Type 1 is most often is seen in children, but can develop in adults. If you have Type 1, your health care provider might recommend scheduled, nutritious meals, exercise, medication, and frequent blood sugar level tests.

2. Type 2 Diabetes occurs when the body does not produce enough insulin or cannot properly use insulin. This is the most common type. The treatment may be similar to Type 1.

3. Pre Diabetes or Borderline Diabetes may occur before a Type 2 diagnosis. Blood glucose levels will be higher than normal. Good nutrition and exercise may be recommended by your health care provider as treatment for pre diabetes. Even a slightly high blood sugar level is insidious and could affect major organs over time.

4. Gestational Diabetes occurs in pregnant women that have high blood glucose levels. This type of Diabetes can harm both Mother and baby. If you have Gestational Diabetes, your health care provider may prescribe meal plans, exercise, daily testing and medicine.