Tips to Tackle Your Fears

First of all, I would say get educated. Knowledge is really power, especially when it comes to diabetes. Understanding how your blood sugars are affected by what you eat, exercise, and by your medications can really help you to learn how to predict what your blood sugars are and feel in control.

I encourage you to ask some of the questions that you might find scary, because I bet you'd find that the answers are actually going to be very reassuring. To this end, find a doctor that you feel really comfortable with, and you can call, even between appointments, to ask questions. If you're new to diabetes, especially a diabetes educator can be a really useful resource, and taking a diabetes class is extremely helpful. You'll meet a lot of other people with diabetes too, and I always hear from my patients just how valuable knowing other people with diabetes and talking to other people are. Support groups are also out there, and that's something that can be really, really helpful and comforting and help to alleviate some fears.

There are so many breakthroughs going on in the world of diabetes. Living with diabetes has never been easier. We're on the brink of the holy grail of an artificial pancreas. We've got ways of testing your blood sugar without even ever getting a drop of blood. So these are realities today, and what we've got coming on the horizon blows you away and will really help to make living with diabetes less work and less scary.