Impediments in Diabetes Treatment

Impediments in Diabetes Treatment

In Delhi and other big metros Diabetes prevalence close to 10% of the population, Diabetes is a chronic illness and now rampant in our society, by various estimates every 5^th-12^th person living in this country’s cities could be suffering from Diabetes,– it is now also spreading its tentacles in the smaller towns and villages. As urbanization is spreading to smaller towns more and more people are getting affected by the lifestyle diseases like Diabetes, High Blood Pressure and Heart Diseases leading to the lethal consequences of Heart Attack and Stroke.

Majority of Diabetes in our country is Type 2 Diabetes, Type 1 Diabetes accounting for 5% or less of all the Diabetes cases. Diabetes requires lifelong treatment or management, even though patients own efforts are very important in controlling Blood Sugar and other important parameters but most of the times they are not sufficient at the best. Diabetes Specialist inDelhi Dr Rajesh Kesari shares some of the key reasons why despite good efforts people fail to control Diabetes:

•                 Lack of understanding of the disease process- may be due to improper of insufficient counseling of patients who are laymen and not supposed to be too familiar with diseases
•                 Insufficient understanding of the consequences of uncontrolled Diabetes- When people are told of the ghastly consequences of Diabetes they tend to take Diabetes more seriously, control diet, do regular exercise and take their medicines regularly.
•                 Delay in initiating Insulin,- Most of the Diabetics require extraneous Insulin after about 10 years of Diabetes, some may require earlier- depending on the Type of Diabetes and the average control of Blood Sugar- but most are reluctant to start taking Insulin- this perhaps is the biggest impediment in achieving adequate control of Diabetes.
•                 Inappropriate Insulin dose- It’s often seen that people start taking Insulin but not in adequate quantities hence are unable to achieve their targets, here the responsibility may lie also with the Diabetologist. In Delhi at our Centre- Total care Control we pay a lot of emphasis on timely Insulin initiation and Insulin dose titrations to achieve our patient’s goals of Diabetes.
•                 Lack of Regular Testing and Follow up- Patients must regularly test their Blood Sugar levels and do other essential tests as HbA1C to assess their Diabetes control. Since Diabetes is asymptomatic patients do not understand whether the Blood Sugar levels are normal or not. Diabetes cannot be cured and has to be managed- so we must use the principles of management to achieve best results, hence regular controls are important to monitor the progress.