How to con­trol dia­betes: there’s the right way and a lot of wrong ways. Dia­betes is like a cruel jack-in-the-box. You always have to keep it under con­trol. If you don’t, the jack-in-the-box will spring out and do bad things to you.

Keep­ing dia­betes in the box isn’t easy. Espe­cially day in and day out, watch­ing what you eat, test­ing your glu­cose lev­els, tak­ing your meds, and all the other things you have to do to keep every­thing under con­trol. Most dia­bet­ics use an approach to dia­betes con­trol that either doesn’t work very well or is very dif­fi­cult to live with day in and day out. Maybe you are one of them.

Check it out: Does one of these describe you?

• The “snap­shot” approach.

You deal with the imme­di­ate sit­u­a­tion and gen­er­al­ize the rest.  You test your blood sugar from time to time, espe­cially if you “feel funny”.  If the read­ing is too high, you might take a shot of insulin (if you use insulin) or you might drink sev­eral glasses of water or try some­thing else to bring it down.  If the read­ing is too low, maybe you eat a piece of candy or even “pig out” until you feel better.

This is a very dan­ger­ous and all too com­mon way to deal with dia­betes. The jack-in-the-box is always jump­ing out. Instead of really con­trol­ling your dia­betes and keep­ing it down, you’re more often just try­ing to get it back in the box. It doesn’t work.

• The “shot­gun” approach.

This too is very com­mon.  You know you have to watch what you eat, keep your blood sug­ars down, take your meds and see your doc­tor reg­u­larly.  You hit at all of them, but your ener­gies and focus are scat­tered and dif­fused.  With­out a sys­tem that fits with your daily lifestyle, one area may be well-managed, but another area of treat­ment may suffer.

You may even do well, gen­er­ally speak­ing.  But all too often you are just putting com­pli­ca­tions (affect­ing the heart, kid­neys, eyes, hands and feet) a lit­tle fur­ther down the road.  And you don’t feel as good as you might if you had better-managed dia­betes con­trol. You still feel tired, still spend too much time and money on extra doc­tor vis­its and med­i­cines that might not be necessary.

• The “Band-Aid” approach.

This is yet another approach by many type 2 dia­bet­ics who use insulin. It’s prob­a­bly the worst of them all. You just eat what you want and “cover it” with a lit­tle extra insulin. Very bad. You are prob­a­bly tight­en­ing the grip that insulin resis­tance already has on you. You increase the like­li­hood of com­pli­ca­tions every day, as well as increase your risk of heart attack or stroke. Don’t do it.

So what is the right way to con­trol diabetes?

I’m the first to admit there is no sin­gle right way. But the right ways are far fewer than the wrong ways used by too many dia­bet­ics. Any way that works, and works every day, and works with your lifestyle, is the right way for you.

That’s why I cre­ated this web­site and wrote a book about it. To offer an approach that brings together solid, up-to-date infor­ma­tion, the right atti­tude, and a goal-oriented sys­tem that makes it work.

What­ever you do, remem­ber that dia­betes is a self-managed dis­ease. No mat­ter how much you know about dia­betes, what good and car­ing doc­tors and treat­ments you have avail­able, it is up to you every day to con­trol your dia­betes.

Don’t let your­self get over­whelmed or dis­cour­aged. Arm your­self with what’s avail­able at this and other good dia­betes web­sites. Deter­mine for your­self: no more once –in-a-while or when-you-feel-like it “snap­shot” approach, or scat­tered or dis­si­pated time and energy of the “shot­gun” approach, or patch­work “Band-Aid” approach that doesn’t work. Put together a plan of infor­ma­tion, the right atti­tude, and a sys­tem to make it work — today!

The Dia­betes Book That Could Save Your Life!