Yesterday I explained how I worry sometimes about most of us. As I sat down to write this afternoon I picked up the June Diabetes Forecast next to my computer and (for some reason) read the guest editorial.
Maybe if more people were like this associate editor I wouldn’t worry quite as much!
The editor, clinical pharmacist Craig Williams, discussed two patients he and his team saw in the hospital on the same day. Both had type 2 diabetes, both had lived with diabetes for some time, were physically active and not too overweight.
One of the patients took almost 400 units of insulin a day and needed more while in the hospital. The other took no insulin and used only a small amount of metformin.
The insulin user’s A1c was above 9 percent and the metformin user’s A1c was 6.1 percent.
The authors’ point was that as a scientist, he wanted to know why the difference and he was frustrated that we don’t have all the answers. (Yet.)
I’m still back there worrying about the patient with an A1c of 9 percent, doing all she can, and still getting less than optimal results. And I’m fairly certain the one with a 6.1 wasn’t having an easy time of things, either.
But I also feel for the healthcare providers. I think patients come to them and expect that the provider than prescribe something for them that, if they do what the doctor orders, will give them the expected result.
Not so when it comes to diabetes!
So I feel a level of sympathy for them because I think for some of them they may feel like they aren’t doing, or can’t do, their job when it comes to each of us and our diabetes.
It’s probably frustrating.
Add in the various forms of denial, anger, fear, frustration, ambivalence, you name it, and the desperate need patients have of their medical team to help with daily life with diabetes and it just has to be a demanding profession any day of the week.
So I really appreciate this author’s laying it on the line and sharing how frustrating the science is for him, from his side. I almost wish more medical professionals we work with could be as frank with us as we ALL fight the good fight to keep our bodies healthy every day.
With everyone on the same team, it makes me worry a little bit less about each of us– what a great thing!
