The Green River District Health Department is currently enrolling through the Kentucky Department for Public Health for its upcoming Healthy Living With Diabetes awareness series.
The series will be offered virtually in four two-hour sessions on May 18th, 20th, 25th and 27th.
According to Merritt Bates-Thomas, GRDHD specialist in diabetes health, living healthy with diabetes is a self-management education and support class.
“The information provided is about guiding people to live with and successfully dealing with diabetes, developing a healthy diet, creating an activity plan, getting tips on how to take their medication, and then risking for both the short and long term Reduce complications. ” She said.
Untreated diabetes can lead to serious health complications, including blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, stroke, or loss of toes, feet, or legs, according to Bates-Thomas.
In addition, there are different types and degrees of the disease, she said.
“Many people consider diabetes to be some kind of all-encompassing chronic disease when in reality it has many different faces,” she said.
Type 1 diabetes has low blood sugar and is unavoidable, according to Bates-Thomas, while type 2 diabetes has high blood sugar and can be prevented or delayed with proper treatment.
Additionally, she said, individuals can develop prediabetes when a person’s blood sugar levels are higher than normal but are not yet high enough to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
One in eight people with prediabetes doesn’t know they have prediabetes, she said. However, prediabetes can be treated to prevent it from turning into type 2 diabetes.
“It’s a point where people can take action, change their lifestyle, like … their eating habits, become more physically active, and look at a variety of things that they can improve,” she said. “Just making these changes and shedding a little weight can cut your risk of developing type 2 diabetes in half.”
Bates-Thomas said the Healthy Living With Diabetes series will help teach individuals more about the many facets of living with diabetes and how to manage them.
Anyone interested in learning more about the series or wanting to register can contact Bates-Thomas at 270-852-5561 or email Merritt.Bates-Thomas@GRDHD.org.
