LA CommuteDiabetes can be a difficult disease to manage, even with the best intentions and most positive attitudes. A recent story in the LA Times documents this ongoing struggle to motivate people to live healthier lives with diabetes. The story presents a scene at T.H.E. (To Help Everyone) Clinic in south Los Angeles of people struggling with diabetes, and often failing to make progress. “This is a train going in the wrong direction,” said Dean Schillinger, a UC San Francisco Medical School professor and medical officer at the California Diabetes Program, in the article. Many people are continuing to gain weight, further complicating their management of diabetes, which sometimes lead to hospitalization. The problem that doctors and programs are running into is a frustrating one — their message of weight loss and diet is failing to have a positive influence on their patients. The rate of diabetes is continuing to climb in the United States, and many people are looking for new tools that will have a greater impact on directly managing diabetes. At My Home Diabetes, we sympathize with the efforts of both doctors and patients. It isn’t easy to change someone’s entire lifestyle. But in that effort, we’ve worked hard to create a “home base” through our website that helps record and organize information about your diabetes. We also have a mobile platform called MedSimple with features like dosage reminders and three types of cost-savings. It’s kind of like an “online ecosystem” for managing your health that synchronizes across multiple platforms. Part of our strategy is creating tools for platforms that people use every day, like their computers or smartphones. We certainly are in favor of daily exercise and healthier eating, but it’s possible that creating a personal awareness for diabetes management through those other platforms could be the first step towards changing an entire lifestyle:
  • First, keep track of medication with your smartphone;
  • Then, educate yourself with a useful website;
  • Finally, make the lifestyle changes necessary to manage diabetes in the healthiest way possible.
What do you think? What steps do you find helpful in creating a healthier lifestyle? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter. My Diabetes Home: your one-stop place for managing your diabetes. Join us now and be part of the community! Any information provided is not medical advice and My Diabetes Home is not responsible for any information from third parties. Go here for more info: https://www.mydiabeteshome.com/mydiabetes/content/terms-use-agreement — photo credit: Neil Kremer via photopin cc