Type 2 Diabetes: Recently Diagnosed
Home Treatment
You play a major role in managing your diabetes. The more you know about your disease, the better you can care for yourself. For the best chance at a long, healthy life, you need to set goals for your treatment, including taking an ASA, following your diet, getting regular exercise, maintaining your target range for blood sugar control, and caring for your feet. If you are overweight, remember that even a small weight loss (5% to 10% of your weight) can help you achieve normal blood sugar levels.
Take an ASA daily
If you are 21 or older, talk to your health professional about taking a low-dose ASA daily to help prevent heart attack, stroke, or other large blood vessel disease (macrovascular disease).5
Follow your diet
Work with a dietitian to plan menus that help you spread carbohydrate throughout the day to keep your blood sugar from rising sharply after meals.
Get regular exercise
Start including exercise in your daily life. Try to do activities that raise your heart rate. Each week, exercise for at least 150 minutes spread over at least 3 days that are not in a row. Or, if you can, get more than 4 hours each week. The Canadian Diabetes Association suggests that you include resistance exercises in your program.6 Resistance exercises can include activities like weight lifting or even yard work. See the topic Fitness for ideas on how to add daily activity to your life.
Maintain blood sugar control
Check your blood sugar level often so you can learn how exercise and various foods affect it. For more information, see:
Quit smoking
If you smoke, quitting may help lower your risk of diabetes complications.
Care for your feet
Inspect your feet every day to look for cuts or other signs of injury. (If you have poor eyesight, have someone else check your feet.) Diabetes can damage the nerve endings and blood vessels in your feet, making you less likely to notice when your feet are injured. Diabetes also interferes with your body's ability to fight infection?if you develop a minor foot injury, it could develop into an ulcer or a serious infection.
With good foot care, you can prevent most of these problems. For more information on foot care, see the topic Type 2 Diabetes: Living With the Disease.
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| Author: | Merrill Hayden Carrie Henley | Last Updated: November 27, 2006 |
| Medical Review: | Adam Husney, MD - Family Medicine Caroline S. Rhoads, MD - Internal Medicine Hanan Bassyouni, MD - Endocrinology and Metabolism Matthew I. Kim, MD - Endocrinology & Metabolism | |
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