Diabetes Distress

Managing diabetes can be a daunting task involving daily attention. It is bound to be discouraging and frustrating, especially when achieving good numbers in your glucometer becomes challenging. Sometimes, even with the best medicines, diabetes progresses to a very disappointing complication.

Those devastating feelings, known as diabetes distress, may slowly lead to unhealthy habits such as stopping checking your blood sugar and skipping doctor’s appointments. It is common for most people with diabetes to feel like this, even after years of good management. 33% to 50% of people with diabetes have diabetes distress.

Diabetes distress resembles depression or anxiety but does not respond to medicine.

The following interventions have been shown to help:

• Regular visits with a qualified diabetologist.
• Referral to a mental health counsellor who specialises in chronic health conditions.
• Spending time with a diabetes educator to work through the issues together.
• Reduce the diabetes management goals to one or two goals at a time instead of working on everything all at once.
• Join a diabetes support group to share experiences with others going through the experience and get suggestions that might work.

Talk to us.