My Diabetes Nurse

There are many kinds of insulins out there. Have questions?
Reach out to a diabetes educator to discuss YOUR specific insulin.

They are NOT all the same/interchangeable (and it can get confusing...). Ask an expert, not the internet

Are you needing help navigating diabetes? Consider hiring a nurse with a specialty certification as a diabetes educator to help you understand food, testing blood glucose/use CGM, and understand medications and/or insulin.

I am a diabetes educator and would love to help you. Did you know that 50 % of people do not receive diabetes education upon diagnosis?

After having spent almost 20 years working at Mayo Clinic Hospital, I started my own diabetes education business. On a campus with 4,000+ nurses, there were less than 5 diabetes educators. You can see, there is not enough educators to teach ALL the things that people with diabetes need to know.

Prefer one on one teaching? Reach out to me at mydiabetesnurse.com to schedule a call.

Have you been looking for a comprehensive guide on Type 2 Diabetes? Our new video "Diabetes Overview" is here! In just 55 minutes, you'll learn about critical aspects like insulin resistance and lifestyle changes. Visit https://wix.to/oDKeZBA and kickstart your diabetes education journey! 🎉

Diabetes Overview | My Diabetes Nurse This 55 minute video will walk you through Type 2 diabetes. Understanding insulin resistance, lifestyle changes and how medications work, this video is a great place to start in your diabetes education journey. This video lays the foundation for all other videos.

Tonight, I had the privilege of presenting to a group of nurses in Nanchang, China, for the second time. I thoroughly enjoyed preparing and delivering a presentation on the American Diabetes Association's 2026 Standards of Care, focusing on the role of nurses in managing hypoglycemia. (Taking pictures during a presentation can be challenging.)

My Diabetes Nurse | Diabetes Education | Jacksonville, Florida Diabetes education provided by a diabetes educator, a nurse who is a specialist in diabetes. Group workshops, focused workshops, individual appointments and provider support services available in Jacksonville, Florida. No insurance needed at My Diabetes Nurse

If you are without health insurance, be sure to go to Healthcare.gov to search the Marketplace for insurance. The deadline for enrolling is Dec 15th for insurance coverage to start 1/1/26.

This was my third year enrolling a family member, and it is very user friendly. Easy to understand language. You can add in your preferred doctors names, prescriptions and as you look at plans, it will tell you whether the plan you are considering covers those items. We started using this "Obamacare" The Markplace insurance on 1/1/24, and my family member was hospitalized on 2/10/24. ER, ICU and several days in the hospital. Thankful that this insurance was in place.

If you need help with the Marketplace, reach out. I am not an insurance agent, just familiar with the process. mydiabetesnurse.com

(This is not a political post, so please no comments.)

Why do you need a certified diabetes educator? Glad you asked...

Benefits of a Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist Certified diabetes care and education specialists (CDCES) offer hands-on support in diabetes management, from helping decode CGM data to building lasting lifestyle habits. Their expertise can complement the care of an endocrinologist and help improve quality of life.

Weight. Yep, let’s address the elephant in the room. 🐘 If you’ve been reading my posts, you know that weight is a big risk factor for pre-diabetes and diabetes. Let me explain why this is so important for type 2 diabetes.

In type 2 diabetes, the pancreas is still working. But it is either working less efficiently, or the body is not as responsive to the existing insulin we are making. We call this insulin resistance. A huge factor for insulin resistance is adipose tissue ,which is a fancy medical word for fat.

WHERE your fat is on your body is also an important factor. If you were to see me in person, you would see that I am shaped like a pear. 🍐Smaller on the top, bigger hips. I come from a long line of pears. 🍐🍐🍐Because I’m a pear, when I gain weight, my fat goes to my hips and butt. For this reason, you will never see me in a pair of leggings without a shirt that hangs down past my hips. Nope! 👎🙅‍♀️

Other people are apple shape. 🍎These people have thin legs, which look great in leggings, but they have fat around the middle. We now know that abdominal fat is more dangerous because it is right around the organs. This layer of fat is preventing your pancreas from keeping up with the demand. Your pancreas is pumping out more and more insulin, struggling to reduce your blood sugars. 😥If you reduce the abdominal fat, your pancreas will be relieved! (Think if it as working short staffed, and finally your workload decreased. No extra workers came in, but you can finally keep up. 😮‍💨 Relief!).

I married a banana 🍌. You all know these people. They are the same weight all the time. 🙄 Lean face, lean bodies. Totally unfair! Hoping Sophi gets these genes 🤞

My husband and I will be married 23 years next May. I realized an odd thing after living with him all of these years. He never finishes all of the food on his plate. I asked him why he can’t eat the last four or five bites and he answers that he is “full”. I don’t even know what that means, because I am part of the clean plate club. 🥇I eat everything on my plate, and it has nothing to do with hunger or fullness. Don’t join my club! 🫢. I realized that he must have this strange signal that I am lacking.  The signal that tells you to stop eating. Ah ha! 🤓

In the past, your doctor told you to push away from the table and eat less. We now know more about obesity! We now know about the role of these hormones, GLP1 and GIP, in creating a sense of satiety, which is fancy medical word for fullness. Or our “stop eating” signal, which I am missing. Clearly Ed gets this signal, 🏁and stops eating.

There is now an injection of this hormone. It comes in a Weekly injection brands Ozempic, Trulicity and Mounjaro. There is one pill version, Rybelsus.
What these medicines to do is make you digest your food slower, which is going to make you stay full longer. You will also get full faster, which is going to reduce the amount of food you’re eating. This will result in weight loss…but the side effects is nausea and constipation. To combat the side effects, they prescribe these medicines at a low-dose for a few weeks and then you increase the dose once you’re tolerating it. Although these not are not obesity medications, they do assist with weight loss-which will help with diabetes because you’re removing fat, which is removing insulin resistance. These medications have clear benefits for diabetes, weight loss, and many of them have now been shown to reduce heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure. A triple threat weapon that is now in our arsenal to treat diabetes! 🧨.

If you need medication specifically for weight loss, there are higher dosages medication as well (Wegovy, Saxenda).

What if you’re like me, and realize you don’t have this stop signal? 🙋‍♀️🤨. For whatever reason, you don’t want to use medication. What can you do? Then you’re going to fill up on low sugar vegetables at every meal. These vegetables are high in fiber, low in calories, and they are going to make you feel full as they take up a lot of space in your stomach. That stretch in the stomach will send the signal. Take your time-chew your food, talk to people, and allow time for that signal to reach your brain. That is why they tell us that we need to eat slowly. ⏰

If you’ve ever been to a restaurant, you’ve probably experienced “the signal”. Example: They bring you the appetizer, then they bring you the salad, and by the time they bring at your main meal you are full. That.is. the.signal=stop eating. Many of us blow through the signal and then are miserable afterwards. 🤢

Today we’re gonna talk about prediabetes. You might think “oh I have prediabetes, no big deal.” Wrong! This is a yellow caution light! 🚦If you don’t make changes, you are very likely to become labeled with diabetes within five years.

Rates of prediabetes are super high, and 8 out of 10 people don’t even know that they have pre-diabetes. So they can’t make necessary changes to hold off the foreboding diagnosis.

What is prediabetes?
Fasting glucose 101 to 125. A1c 5.7%- 6.4%.
Anybody who has a diagnosis of impaired fasting glucose.

The signs of diabetes are very vague: thirsty all the time, excess urination, no energy. That is why people do not realize that they have diabetes, because those symptoms are easily explained away. The unfortunate thing is that they’ve likely had the symptoms for many years before they were finally diagnosed with diabetes. Prediabetes has been present for years!

There are certain things that put us at risk for diabetes, and these things cannot be changed. Our age, race, if we have an immediate family member (mother, brother, father, or sister with diabetes). Let’s not focus on those things we can’t change.

Instead let’s look at the things we do know that increase sour risk of diabetes, BUT we have the power 💥 to change. Our food choices, our weight, our level of activity.

Weight loss is a huge factor that you can change. As rates of obesity are increasing, so our rates of prediabetes and diabetes. We have to stay lean, because remember fat causes insulin resistance. Lose the fat, lose the insulin resistance. Weight loss is a hard thing for many people, me included. It’s easy to slip back in to bad habits, so I love the new year as a way of forcing me to take an inventory of what needs to be changed.

Are you ready to take the test to see if you are at risk for diabetes?

Healthy living (aka diabetes): exercise. Yep, it’s important, not just for people who have diabetes, for ALL people. (Yes, I’m talking to you.)

Exercise has many benefits-it naturally lowers the blood sugars for 24 hours, lowers blood pressure, lowers cholesterol, lowers/maintains your weight, increases your bone strength, is good for depression, and promotes circulation. It is good for pretty much everything!

We all know these things about exercise, yet we still don’t prioritize it. 🤪🤷🏼‍♀️Let’s examine why. Anytime you are considering making a change, it is good to examine barriers that you are facing. Before you can actually make a change, you have to reduce the barrier so that you will be successful.

This quote that I saw on the Tom Trout billboard in Jacksonville sums it up perfectly “Exercise is like a wet bathing suit-hard to get into but easy to get out of”. 😳

#1 physical barriers.
Many people do not exercise because they have knee pain or hip pain or back pain. However, there are exercises you can do like riding a stationary bike, swimming, or doing seated chair exercises. The ironic thing about exercise, is that it actually decreases pain. Exercise reduces inflammation which decreases pain. So, let’s go! “Motion is lotion” to quote physical therapists.

#2 time barrier. I think this is one of the most common barriers that working people face. How do you fit exercise into your day? First off, exercise does not have to be going to a gym. It can be as simple as walking. I know you’re probably thinking walking is not really doing much, but it is. My work had a shuttle for the parking lot. I “broke up“with the shuttle years ago. It takes me 11 minutes to walk in from my car to my office, and 11 minutes to walk back out. I just added 22 minutes of exercise to my daily routine without doing anything special. (and I think I’m
Faster than that shuttle who has to make lots of stops).

Figuring out how to build exercise time into your day is important. Whether you go for a walk in the morning or you go for a walk in the evening after dinner, the goal is to exercise 30 minutes a day every day.

#3 Find exercise that you actually enjoy. Some people really like machines, such as treadmills and ellipticals. Some people do better in group exercise. Some people like to work out alone. Find what kind of exercise you like.

I discovered out a long time ago that I am a group exercise person. If I have a class at the gym, it’s like an appointment that I have to show up on time for and stay the entire time. I am not interested in planning my own work out, just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. 🫡I’ll actually do it better, knowing that you’re judging me. If I work out on my own, I’m more likely to slack. (I specifically switched gyms just for more workout classes). Body combat (think dance fighting) is one of my favorite classes at the YMCA. I feel like I could win an MMA fight as long as I had a good beat. 🥷🎶

The gym also has a ton of machinery, but I never use it. I am not interested in planning my own work out. I am more likely to go for a walk 🏃‍♀️ with someone in the neighborhood with whom I enjoy talking. Vera Santioni Meyerholtz and Tiffany Vorhies are my “standing” 6:40 meeting for walking each morning.

Since I don’t want to plan my own workout, I utilize an app called 7 Minute Workout Challenge. This apps costs about $4. This voice will tell me to do jumping jacks for 30 seconds then rest for 10 seconds. Then he will tell me the next exercise to do for 30 seconds, then rest for 10 seconds. It’s not the same as a group work out, but it’s pretty close. I can tell the app how many cycles of 7 minutes I want to do, at home, any time. I can play my own music in the background. I find that music is super important for working out. Plus the app gives me a “good job” reward after I finish.

Almost 6 years ago, a good friend asked why I didn’t ride my bike to work at Mayo Clinic. 🚴‍♀️ That was a good question, since I live one exit from work. But there were barriers that I would have to consider before I could be successful. What is a safe route to take? You can’t ride on JTB, so the route is 5 miles one way with roads that have sidewalks. How long would it take me? 30 minutes. What would I do when I arrived at work sweaty? Bring baby wipes or locate a shower at work. How would I get my work clothes there? Wear a backpack with my wrinkle-free dress and shoes inside. I am happy to say, that I biked to work once a week for 4+ years (weather pending). 🙌 Has it been easy? Not at first, I had to figure out some of those barriers before I ever biked for the first time. Some barriers have come up along the way, and I figured out a solution to them. Either way, I added an hour of exercise per week to my fitness routine. I put my music on speaker, and jam out riding to/from work. Time change? Figure out lights for on the bike (I used the lights on the wheels). Not only does it benefit me physically, but also mentally. It gives me time to think, time to listen to music, and makes me feel good mentally. I feel good when my husband noticed that I rode 10 miles that day and says “I’m proud of you for sticking with this”. 😎

Figure out your barriers to exercise. Then figure out the solutions. Because your health (cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, circulation, depression/anxiety) are worth it.



Healthy eating (aka Diabetes): OK y’all, let’s talk about food.

We all are super busy these days and sometimes dinner does not get the attention that it deserves. It is important to try to eat most of your meals from home. Eating out has way more calories than eating at home, portion sizes are too big, and they often use a lot more salt and butter than you would use if you were cooking. (That is why it tastes so much better when you go out to eat!) 😳

Here’s an example. I went to a restaurant and ordered a steak, steamed broccoli and salad. When my steak came out, it had a huge tablespoon of butter melting on top of the steak! 🤬. If I were at home, I would not put butter on top of my steak-the steak taste perfectly fine when it comes off the grill. That butter just added another 100+ calories to a meal that was already going to taste good anyway.
So now, I only eat steak at home. A little Mccormick’s seasoning and cooked medium—so good!

I wanted to share an example of how I plan my weekly dinners. Each Sunday I sit down and write out what we’re gonna have for each night at dinner. As I write down the meal, I write out my grocery list. 🤓Warning: I am that weird person who actually likes going to the grocery store. I only go to the store one time per week. That is very efficient. I know when I come home on Tuesday I already have all of the ingredients I need to make dinner. So planning is important to keep you successful. It is tempting to get home at 7 PM, and on impulse, get take out. If I have everything I need to make dinner, I can make a healthier dinner faster than you can go pick it up.

With every dinner, I include a low sugar vegetable, a carb, and a protein. Since my husband says I make too much food, I always build in a leftovers night. That night is my flexibility for when I come in too late to make dinner.Leftovers to the rescue!

About 2 years ago, Sophi suggested we go meatless. Now you just read how much I like steak, so you know that ain’t gonna happen. However, we did start Meatless Mondays. So I try really hard to plan a meatless meal on Monday nights. (Ed and Sophi’s lunches that I pack every day, get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Mondays).

When we first went meatless, I literally served grilled cheese and tomato soup every Monday, because I did not know what else to make. One of the things that going meatless on Mondays has forced me to do is to add some variety. I now know how to make lentils. I also make a really good sweet potato soup which I will serve with a salad. I took a taco soup recipe and left out the ground beef, TaDa... meatless! Potato skins for an entree-sure, served with a low carb veggie.

I’m not proposing that everybody try it, but one of the things that has taught me is how to incorporate more variety in my recipes.

Since this is my last post about food, I also don’t fry anything at home. (Whoever gave me the fry daddy for my wedding-😕sorry, you now know that I regifted that 17 years ago 🤪). Does that mean that we don’t eat fried food? No, but I’m gonna leave the frying and mess up to the experts. Our family eats out on Friday nights and Saturday nights. All other dinners are cooked at home.

As Americans, we should be eating fish twice a week, and I’m not talking about fried fish. I’m talking about salmon, tuna, mackerel, those fish that have healthy oils in them. So I do try to incorporate that into one of the meals during the week. Then one day at lunch tuna fish sandwich or those tuna kits with crackers.

Am I always successful? Not always. This is a journey, not a race.

Diabetes Awareness day is Nov 14th. Sharing information to promote awareness.

Diabetes lesson: A1c.
The other type of testing for diabetes is called A1c. This is different than self blood glucose monitoring which gives your blood sugar level right then. The A1c gives you an average of your blood sugars for the last 2 to 3 months. It is measured in a percentage.
A1c 6.5% or higher=diabetes.
A1c 5.7%-6.4%=prediabetes.
A1c 5.6% or less= normal.

How does this type of test work? Our red blood cells travel around with glucose. The more glucose floating through our bloodstream, the more glucose is attached to the hemoglobin. When you look at the red blood glucose under a microscope, the more glucose attached to it, the higher the percent. Red blood cells are re-created every 90 days, so it is a good picture of how much glucose has been traveling around with this red blood cell/hemoglobin for the last three months.

Because the A1c is associated with hemoglobin/red blood cells, the A1c can be off if you recently had a blood transfusion, if you have anemia, or if you are on hemodialysis. 

Because it is an average, if you have a lot of low blood sugars, that can lower the average just like factoring in a really low test score can lower your overall average.

You and your care team can use the A1c to tell them what is working, and what is not working. 

The American Diabetes Association recommends 7% 🎯A1c as a goal for most people. However everyone has their own goals. If you start it off your diabetes journey with an A1c of 13%, and your A1c is now 9%, you have been making improvements. It helps you to see the big picture of how the things you are doing on a daily basis (medication, exercise, and other things) affect your average blood sugar.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about how diabetes technology will make A1c a thing of the past!