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Dafne

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Claire91

Claire91

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Good evening everyone,
Haven't been on here in a while.. Some great news I am starting the DAFNE course on Monday. Has anyone been on it ? Any tips? Was it beneficial? Just annoyed my manager said I have to have it unpaid or use my holiday :(
xx
 
Hiya Claire, nice to hear from you again 🙂 I haven't been on DAFNE, but nearly everyone I've heard from who has says they really got a lot out of it 🙂

Hope you do too! I'm sure someone will be along to share their experiences of it 🙂
 
Northerner said:
Hiya Claire, nice to hear from you again 🙂 I haven't been on DAFNE, but nearly everyone I've heard from who has says they really got a lot out of it 🙂

Hope you do too! I'm sure someone will be along to share their experiences of it 🙂
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I am just REALLY hoping other people dont always have the "perfect" bloodsugar cuz mine aint!! lol
 
Just annoyed my manager said I have to have it unpaid or use my holiday
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I'm pretty sure that's illegal. DAFNE time off would count as sick leave. Otherwise, it's disability discrimination. If you lost your legs and had to learn how to walk on artificial limbs, the time off you require for that couldn't possibly be deducted from wages or holiday time. It's no different for diabetes.
 
I'm pretty sure I had to take it off unpaid. But it was more manageable for my employers as the course I did was a local equivalent called 'ASPIRE' and it was 1 day per week, rather than a whole week in one go. No idea on the legalities of employers 'having' to give you the time off.
 
I wouldn't worry about perfect bloods. I had a meeting with the nurse the week before and she worked out how much insulin I had to take for what I ate for breakfast and told me to take this amount the very first day of dafne. By lunch time on my first day with a load of other diabetics my blood was 21, I burst out crying as it rarely hit that before. Saying that dafne was great, after been diabetic for 21 years I learnt more on this course. I still do bits of dafne, carb counting etc and have good control. Hope you get on we'll.

On the work front, I got special leave and got paid. Xx
 
Its a good course to go on, and imo they should give every diabetic the choice. As for bloodsugars, there was an intelligent profesional person on my course who ran her sugars at 20 😱
 
You will get something out of course. & its worth taking time off work. 😎
 
DeusXM said:
I'm pretty sure that's illegal. DAFNE time off would count as sick leave. Otherwise, it's disability discrimination. If you lost your legs and had to learn how to walk on artificial limbs, the time off you require for that couldn't possibly be deducted from wages or holiday time. It's no different for diabetes.
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I'm afraid it's discretionary, as it's not really a medical treatment, although I do take your point about it being preventative and therefore an investment. I used my holiday time when I did it and it was definitely worth it. Some employers would be generous but I can't see how it would be illegal not to.
 
It might be worth checking your employer's Special Leave policy (public sector and larger private companies have them). For small and medium sized companies, such policies may not be in place. If you ask, the worst they can do is say NO.
 
DeusXM said:
I'm pretty sure that's illegal. DAFNE time off would count as sick leave. Otherwise, it's disability discrimination. If you lost your legs and had to learn how to walk on artificial limbs, the time off you require for that couldn't possibly be deducted from wages or holiday time. It's no different for diabetes.
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Wrong, you get a letter to give to your employer asking for the time off but it's at the discretion of the employer if it's paid or not, I had to take mine as holiday time, can't see how you think it should be seen as sick leave:confused:
 
I'm doing a DAFNE type course, it lasts for 4 days. My manager is very good with giving me time off for Drs or hospital. But they said I would have to take as holiday. I wasn't given the option of time off without pay.

Not bothered really as it will be a good experience for me and is a pre-requisite for being able to have a pump, so in that respect am happy to take the time as holiday.

Anyhoo, I hope your course goes well! 🙂
 
I did an XPERT Insulin course last year over 6 consecutive Mondays and was able to take the time off as Disability Leave(which is paid leave). Disability leave is for anyone with a disability that have to take time off from work for something relating to their disability e.g. physiotherapy, or in a diabetics case a course that helps with their BG control by learning to carb count.

Where I work you are entitled to take up to 6 weeks in a year as disability leave.
Maybe you should mention it to your manager.
 
Wow! I'm sorry your work won't cover it or that they even have a legal option not to! My team gave out a very effective letter for employers explaining the advantages of the course and that in Germany, health insurance / cover for work is not given out until people have attended such a course because there was such a positive impact of employees long term health / work attendance and after that I didn't have any problems.

Anyway, hopefully you found it as useful as I did - meeting other real life diabetics was fascinating and don't worry, if 9/10 diabetic people you know have perfect blood sugars, either they're lying or absolutely remarkable.

How was your first day?
 
Thanks for the comments everyone 🙂🙂 Most helpful!
I feel so much better because other diabetics I have spoke to they tell me their blood tests are "5-8" .. It was getting me down cuz i was thinking god mine must be awful!
I start the course tomorrow.. Looking forward to it, but also nervous, but that is obviously normal 🙂
Did you guys take like a notepad and pen to jot things down?
 
Good luck Claire, hope it goes well and you meet some nice people 🙂 Always worth taking a pen and paper with you, just in case, although I imagine they would provide them if needed 🙂
 
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