Happy March, DiabetesSisters! Last month I was extremely fortunate to spend a long weekend with some of my favorite people with diabetes, my fellow athletes of Team Type 1. While at our training camp we were given the opportunity to have our yearly eye exam performed through VSP's mobile clinic. Knowing how important eye health is for someone with diabetes I jumped at the chance. What I didn't know is that I would be getting more than just my annual eye exam; I was also about to learn some important news regarding eye health for women with diabetes! Ever curious I asked my optometrist if there was anything that we as women with diabetes should know regarding our eye health. Yes, in fact, there are many things that we should be aware of throughout our different stages in life. Below, I've summed up my lessons learned.
As a woman with diabetes you need to have an eye exam on an annual basis. End of story. Many complications from diabetes that relate to eye health can be stopped if caught early.
During pregnancy you should ideally have your eyes examined either before or after the pregnancy. Your body goes through many changes during that time, including your cornea which can alter your vision. Women who wear glasses or contacts should avoid changing your prescription if at all possible as your vision should return to normal post pregnancy. However, if your physician recommends an eye exam, by all means you should definitely go!
Many women find that after menopause they experience an increase of eye dryness. This is quite common, actually. If you have any of these symptoms visit your optometrist asap to see if they can help!
Bottom line, as women with diabetes it is crucial that we stay on top of our eye health and the best way to do that is to see your optometrist every year your routine diabetic eye exam!
Until next month!
Laura Ely
Communications Coordinator
Maxed Out Registration for 2010 DiabetesSisters Weekend for Women!
Read here each month to find out the recent happenings with Weekend for Women retreat
Registrants hail from 20 different states and range in age from 18-76. Sixty percent of the registrants have Type 1 diabetes, 35% have Type 2 diabetes, 3% have pre-diabetes, and 2% have LADA/Type 1.5.
Camp buddies will reunite, online friends will meet face-to-face, and women will come together to provide encouragement, support, experience and expertise in all things related to living with diabetes as a woman. We are honored, humbled and in awe of just how cool it will be to have this group together at the retreat.
The overwhelming positive response has been a joy to all the volunteers working so hard to make the event happen. We are grateful to all our friends in the D- online community for your posts and announcements, and we are looking forward to an incredible event.
This month, we highlight faculty member Constance Brown-Riggs, RD, CDE who will present the breakout session on nutrition for women on Sunday late morning at the retreat. Constance is a New York State Certified Dietitian Nutritionist where she served as a past president of the New York State Dietetic Association. She is a national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and was named the Association's Diabetes Educator of the Year in 2007. She is also the author of Eating Soulfully and Healthfully with Diabetes, a guide to preparing traditional ethnic food from the American South and the Caribbean.
If you can’t make the DiabetesSisters 2010 Weekend for Women Conference, don’t worry – we’re planning more! DiabetesSisters members and Newsletter recipients will be the first to know of upcoming events so make sure you are signed up.
The DiabetesSisters Sister Spotlight!
Meet Laura Watson...
Have you ever heard the quote about God only giving us as much as we can handle and the response “I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”? For a long time that thought embodied how I felt as a woman living with Type-1 diabetes. I was diagnosed at the age of 10 and spent my childhood and teenage years wanting to handle everything myself while not letting diabetes define who I was. I regret that I never attended a diabetes camp or even support group (“who wants to be around a bunch of sick people?” or so I thought) as I now know how positive that experience could’ve been for me. After graduating from college, I moved from my home in North Carolina to Orlando, and while I got involved with JDRF as a way to connect with a diabetes community, I slipped into a bad routine of taking insulin without checking my blood sugar and of making up readings to put in my log book when I had to go to my endocrinologist. I also began to gain a lot of weight and was finally diagnosed with hypothyroidism at the age of 24 (I had been borderline since 13). I went through periods of doing better, typically after I had been to the doctor and was inspired to take better care of myself after seeing people in the waiting room that were dealing with the complications of diabetes. Unfortunately this didn’t last and I continued to unknowingly float through a sea of diabetes denial. This might not make sense as I had been living with diabetes for 14 years, but I think it took that long for reality to set in. I felt like a fraud as I coordinated a team of people to walk in JDRF’s “Walk for a Cure” each year and they complimented me on my efforts; little did they know that I was barely holding on to an A1C of 10% and was by no means a poster child for taking care of diabetes. I often wondered what would bring me out of my diabetes funk but nothing seemed to help.
In 2006 I moved back to North Carolina and stumbled upon DiabetesSisters. I quickly filled out the online form to volunteer and Brandy quickly responded. I began emailing one of the DiabetesSisters bloggers who lives in California. I traveled to Chapel Hill to meet Brandy and Laura Ely and thought to myself that there was no reason why I couldn’t manage my diabetes and have such a positive attitude the way they did. I finally realized how in my fight to not let diabetes define me, I had fought against letting it be a part of me, and there’s no denying that it is. There’s also no denying that I am strong enough to handle the day-to-day demands and challenges that diabetes can bring.
In 2009 my New Year’s resolution was to get back into running (something I had really enjoyed from high school through my mid-20s) and to train for the Disney World half-marathon in January 2010. I also decided to finally get serious about an insulin pump. Over the course of the year, I ran in 8 races, went on a pump in July, brought my A1C down to 7%, and lost 38 pounds. I completed the Disney half-marathon in January and finished feeling great; I created a special t-shirt for the race that said:
“Living with diabetes? My test of endurance. Running a half-marathon? My piece of cake!”
This embodies where I am with diabetes today: yes, it’s a challenge and yes, it will always be a lot to handle. But thanks to connecting with a group of women with diabetes at a time when I really needed a “shot in the arm”, I realized that I AM strong enough to manage the disease and that running 13.1 miles is nothing compared with this. I am very thankful for this realization, and, more importantly, for DiabetesSisters. God has given me only what I can handle and I am lucky enough to have also been given a group of women to help me carry the load.
DiabetesSisters is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the health and quality of life of women with diabetes, and to advocate on their behalf.
News Briefs, Updates & Events!
The 2010 Weekend for Women Conference hosted by DiabetesSisters and TCOYD will take place on May 22-23 in Raleigh, NC.
can handle and the response “I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”? For a long time that thought embodied how I felt as a woman living with Type-1 diabetes. I was diagnosed at the age of 10 and spent my childhood and teenage years wanting to handle everything myself while not letting diabetes define who I was. I regret that I never attended a diabetes camp or even support group (“who wants to be around a bunch of sick people?” or so I thought) as I now know how positive that experience could’ve been for me. After graduating from college, I moved from my home in North Carolina to Orlando, and while I got involved with JDRF as a way to connect with a diabetes community, I slipped into a bad routine of taking insulin without checking my blood sugar and of making up readings to put in my log book when I had to go to my endocrinologist. I also began to gain a lot of weight and was finally diagnosed with hypothyroidism at the age of 24 (I had been borderline since 13). I went through periods of doing better, typically after I had been to the doctor and was inspired to take better care of myself after seeing people in the waiting room that were dealing with the complications of diabetes. Unfortunately this didn’t last and I continued to unknowingly float through a sea of diabetes denial. This might not make sense as I had been living with diabetes for 14 years, but I think it took that long for reality to set in. I felt like a fraud as I coordinated a team of people to walk in JDRF’s “Walk for a Cure” each year and they complimented me on my efforts; little did they know that I was barely holding on to an A1C of 10% and was by no means a poster child for taking care of diabetes. I often wondered what would bring me out of my diabetes funk but nothing seemed to help.
