Diabetes care teams

[PCV]

Hi,

I am wondering what the Derbyshire Adult Diabetes care team is like and if people find them helpful with their control and health.

Thanks.

 

[rebrascora]

I think any team will vary with the individual members that are part of your support group. ie. your individual DSN if you have one, or consultant and if you have a personality clash or difference of approach with one, then you should be able to request a change.
I believe it may be a forum rule not to name individual health care professionals and as diabetes management is very individual, one person may give a glowing review and another may be disgruntled.

I am in Durham and I absolutely love my new consultant. I don't know if I have a named DSN, so my support team is basically a near annual appointment with my consultant. I had a really good relationship with my previous consultant, but I am very self motivated with my diabetes management and don't need much support. I am sure there will be other people within my area who don't have the same view of the support they get. We are all different.

Are you moving into the Derbyshire area and wondering about sticking with your current team or moving?

Using the word "control" in relation to diabetes management is a bit optimistic as none of us have control over all the factors which impact our BG levels, so even on the best diabetes day, there is an element of luck and a bad day might not be because we made a mistake but just that factors beyond our influence have put a spanner in the works. We do the best we can to manage it well whilst continuing to live our lives. The nurses and consultants don't live with us 24/7 and see what we eat and when and what and when we exercise and how deeply we sleep and what things are stressing us etc and all these things impact out diabetes management, so any suggestions they make about our management are just rough general guidelines.
If we do some careful experimenting ourselves we can become the expert in our own diabetes management and are then better placed to make day to day decisions and fine tune our diabetes management to our very individual needs. We will however still get it wrong occasionally because of those factors we have no control over. That is just diabetes.

 

[PhoebeC]

I don’t know where you are based but until recently I fell between Derbyshire and Tameside, I chose to stay with Tameside when the bands changed. My DSN asked me and I said even though (because I don’t drive) the journey to Tameside is a faff, Derbyshire would be impossible for me, the care I got compared to in Cheshire is incredible at Tameside and I would tell anyone who can be with them to be under them. As soon as I moved into Tameside I was put onto the CGM I’d been asking for in Cheshire for years. 2 weeks here and I was on it.

But I haven’t got any personal experience of Derbyshire.
I have heard very mixed things from local diabetics who I have met. It depends what you are looking for from you care, and if it works for you.