Although there’s no magic formula to living well with diabetes, the secret seems to be developing healthy eating habits, exercising regularly, taking all the proper medications and communicating with your doctor. Do these four things and there’s a good chance your diabetes will be well under control, but perhaps the biggest challenge is keeping up with all your medications.
Although we’re sharing these three most common mistakes diabetics make when it comes to taking their medications, these mistakes can easily be applied to anyone who takes prescribed medication(s).
1. Forgetting doses
This happens to almost everyone, especially these days when multitasking is encouraged and everyone is being pulled in what seems to be a million different directions.
“Forgetting or skipping doses would likely cause your diabetes to be out of control,” says Dr. Bola Oyeyipo, a family physician in San Antonio, Texas and co-founder of Healthgist.com. “Many patients would go as far as lie to their doctor to cover up their indiscretions.”
She continues: “Their uncontrolled blood sugar would often lead to the doctor increasing the medication dose when all that’s needed is better compliance with the prescribed medications.”
To keep better track of what medications to take and when to take them, set a reminder on your smartphone or leave an old-fashioned note on your dresser or refrigerator door – hey, whatever it takes! Communication with your doctor is key, so you should already have discussed with him or her what to do if you accidentally skip a dose.