Skabewis

by Dr. Arne Vainio
News From Indian Country

I recently went to a 2-day diabetes conference in Minneapolis. In our clinic we see many patients with diabetes and do lots of diabetes care. We have a diabetes team that really cares about our patients and keeps us up-to-date on new medicines and therapies.

Still, this was a valuable experience. In the day to day care of diabetes I see foot ulcers, infections, hypertension (high blood pressure), kidney and heart disease, diabetic retinopathy (eye damage due to diabetes) and high cholesterol. These are independent disease states, but diabetes is a common link to all of them.

Managing heart disease, kidney disease, or foot ulcers is a major undertaking and entire (or even multiple) visits get devoted to these complications of diabetes. Sometimes in the middle of the battle it’s easy to miss the big picture.

The big picture is diabetes itself.

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