Diabetes Education
View online diabetes support group information
Good diabetes care is a team effort that involves you, your family and friends, your physician and other health professionals. MercyOne Newton Medical Center will help you learn to manage your diabetes and your diabetic meal plan, as well as take control of your life again.
Our education programs cover:
- How do you get diabetes?
- General information about diabetes and its causes
- Adjusting psychologically to caring for diabetes
- Using family and friends for support and teaching them about diabetes
- Understanding your diabetic meal plan
- Exercising wisely
- Understanding your diabetes medication
- Testing your blood sugar
- Balancing your diabetic meal plan, exercise and diabetes medications
- Dealing with high blood sugars and low blood sugars – their symptoms, causes and treatments
- Preventing and treating long-term complications
- Maintaining good hygiene (including foot, skin and dental care)
- Fitting diabetes into your lifestyle – setting goals and changing behavior
- Benefits, risks, and management options for improving blood sugar control
- Preconception care, pregnancy and gestational diabetes
- Using the health-care system and your health-care team to help you manage your diabetes
Our programs
Group classes – Group classes are designed to provide you and your family with general information about diabetes when you are newly diagnosed. Get answers to questions such as "How do you get diabetes?" and much more.
Intensive insulin management – Designed to give you the knowledge to make adjustments in your insulin dose to accommodate variety and activity patterns, allowing greater flexibility in day-to-day living.
Insulin pump therapy – If you desire intensive insulin management through the use of an insulin pump, we provide the knowledge necessary to successfully and safely operate an insulin pump.
Diabetes and pregnancy – This program is designed to provide proper preconception, pregnancy and gestational diabetes care to assure a successful pregnancy.
Continuous Glucose Monitoring – The FreeStyle Libre Pro sensor continually measures and stores sugar levels for up to 14 days, after which our diabetes educator will download data that will provide information about how sugar levels are trending throughout the day and night. This information will be used to adjust diabetes treatment and improve glycemic control.
Annual review class – This two-hour class is offered four times per year and provides a review of information to assist you with diabetes management.
How to have a healthy life with diabetes:
- Accept the fact that you have diabetes.
- Understand that poor blood sugar control can cause serious complications, even if you feel fine.
- Learn all you can about diabetes: read, ask lots of questions and attend a diabetes education program.
- Work with a health-care team (your physician, a diabetes educator, dietitian and other specialists) to get your blood sugars under optimal control and develop a diabetic meal plan. How you manage your diabetes depends on your personal goals and needs. The more you know about who you are and what you want, the better you can tailor your diabetes care to fit your life.
Contact us
To learn more about diabetes education services provided to Newton, Jasper County and the Des Moines area, contact Jenny Thompson, RD, LD, CDCES (Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist), at 641-791-4303 or jthompson@skiffmed.com.
