Manage Your Diabetes Medications

Most patients have tendency to forget taking their medications every day. Remembering to take medications is not as easy as ABC. Patients who have multiple health problems, they need to take many medications per day. This increases the tendency to forget taking medications. Medications are very important to all patients especially for diabetic patients.

The oral medications for diabetes such as biguanides, sulfonylureas and thiazolidinediones help to control glucose and insulin level in the body. If the medications are always not being taken on time, it can cause negative effects to patients’ blood sugar and can lead to complications such as damage to eyes, kidneys and nerves. For insulin injections, patients have to comply it in order to avoid the symptoms of hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia. When visiting physicians, report any miss dose or any medications that are forgotten to be taken. If patients fail to report, the physicians will increase the medications dose or add on medicine regime which means more medicine patients need to take every day.

Patients are encouraged to write a diary about their health. It is familiar to be known as medication log or journal. In the logbook or journal, patients can write the time that patients take their medications. It needs less cost and quick, but it needs more disciplines and particular on the diary. Besides, patients can write their blood sugar level in the book and they can see the patterns of blood sugar level every day.  Make it as a part of daily routine activity.

Nowadays, many smart phones can be afforded by patients. There are many health applications that can be installed for free. Thus, patients can use the applications to remind them to take medications as well as to avoid any miss dose of medications. Or else, for those who do not have any smart phone, the old school phones also can be used. Set alarm on the phones and make it repeats daily. Or, set reminders at the time when the medications should be taken.

Diabetic patients are not encouraged to live alone. They have potential to suffer with hypoglycemia if their eating is not well monitored. During the symptoms, they really need help from other relatives. The relatives can quickly provide sugary drinks or fruit juice to patients. In addition, the relatives can always remind patients to take medications. Patients with diabetes need a good management, hence, to lean on someone from time to time is not a problem. If patients live alone, the sugary beverages or sweets should always be at their side. 

A vital part of management is insulin injections. Forgetting to inject insulin can cause missing an insulin dose. It can be very dangerous and severe complications of hyperglycemia can happen. The reasons for forgetting to take insulin can be due to too stress, too busy and too distracted. Some tips that can be applied to avoid any forgets on insulin injections are; avoid any distraction, set an injection alarm, bring injection pen when going out, always relate meal time with injection time and do not perform another task when injecting. Again, management for medication intake is very important especially for diabetic patients. Any miss dose will affect blood glucose level which can cause complications if it is not well supervised.