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First appointment with diabetes consultant

R

Rachellouc

Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Carer/Partner
My son, who is 25, has been type 1 for nearly two years. So far he has only been seen by diabetic nurses at diagnosis and been given Libre 2. He is usually telephoned at work and often cancelled by diabetic nurses at the hospital. However, he is seeing (unless cancelled) a diabetic consultant in April. He will probably ask me to go along and if he does I wondered apart from his management of levels what this covers and what he/we should ask?
 
It will be useful for your son to decide what he wants to get out of the appointment.

Nowadays our numbers/data is available online prior to the appointment and this gives some pointers to any issues that are arising. It would be useful for your son to review his data and see if there are any issues that he wants to raise. It is likely that they will look at Time in Range, which can be picked up from the Libre. Anything above 70% is great (it is impossible to get it to 100% apart from the odd brief occasion). We are asked to email our consultant with what we want to get out of the appointment about a week beforehand. I find this very useful.

Most of my communications with the diabetes team are through the diabetes Specialist nurses (DSNs) who usually have more time available than the consultants. I am able to email them with any questions and I have given them access to the data from my sensor which is great if I have a question about a specific situation that arose.

How does your son manage his diabetes? Is he on injections or does he use a pump. This is something that he might want to consider before the appointment.
What insulins does he use?
Is he having any issues with his management?
How does he manage exercise?

It is his appointment and the better prepared he is the more he is likely to get out of it. Read around on the forum as there are discussions about switching to lumps, there will be someone on here using any pump your son is using/would like to switch to.

Any questions - Just ask.
 
Make sure you write the questions down on a piece of paper so you dont forget any as it's easy to get lost in conversation.
 
The important thing to remember is that the appointment is for your son, not the consultant.
So, what does he want to get out of it?
As @SB2015 mentioned, it is a good chance to ask about other diabetes management tools such as a pump (not "lump" as they mentioned 😳 ) or, if your son is finding he has any problems with his Libre, he can ask for a different CGM or whether there is any benefit from trying different insulins,...
Or are there any times when your soon finds his BG harder to manage such as doing exercise or when srtessed? He could ask for techniques for helping at these times.

As for @Fazza idea about writing things down on, this is a great idea. I don't bother with paper - I always have my phone with me so make notes on that. I also write the responses down on my phone (if I can't do it during the appointment, I stop in the waiting room on the way out while it is still clear in my mind) so I have them with me to refer back to. I have a tendency to lose pieces of paper.
 
helli said:
As for @Fazza idea about writing things down on, this is a great idea. I don't bother with paper - I always have my phone with me so make notes on that. I also write the responses down on my phone (if I can't do it during the appointment, I stop in the waiting room on the way out while it is still clear in my mind) so I have them with me to refer back to. I have a tendency to lose pieces of paper.
Click to expand...
I've found in the past when I've written things down that if I pass the piece of paper to my Doctor or Nurse it means I wont forget to ask any of them and they work their way down the list.
 
I have also spoken to people who record their appointment, with permission, so that they can refer back to it. It is important to use the appointment in a way that your son will get what he wants out of it.
 
Rachellouc said:
My son, who is 25, has been type 1 for nearly two years. So far he has only been seen by diabetic nurses at diagnosis and been given Libre 2. He is usually telephoned at work and often cancelled by diabetic nurses at the hospital. However, he is seeing (unless cancelled) a diabetic consultant in April. He will probably ask me to go along and if he does I wondered apart from his management of levels what this covers and what he/we should ask?
Click to expand...
I would add:

What regular appointments he should be having?
Why he hasn't had any since diagnoses?
Is there any training he can do such as DAFNE?

And as others have said if there is anything that he can't get the hang on, any trends, any things he wishes he can do now that he was doing before but isn't because of diabetes.

I asked my new local surgery, to be referred to my hospital team when I moved NHS area, then I asked the hospital team what support they could give me, and to see the dietitian too. Then I asked about about pump and I got refereed for that too, and now I have it. If you don't ask you never know.
 
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