Diabetes educators: your partners in diabetes management

Diabetes Educators are health professionals—nurses, dietitians, pharmacists, doctors, exercise physiologists, podiatrists, and social workers, among others—who specialize in providing care and education to people with diabetes. Many are also certified diabetes educators (CDEs), which means they have met additional criteria for providing diabetes care.

Diabetes Educators provide comprehensive care. They counsel patients on how to incorporate healthy eating and physical activity into their life. They also help patients understand how their medications work, teach them how to monitor their blood glucose to avoid the risk of complications, and enable them to problem-solve and adjust emotionally to diabetes.

Diabetes Educators put the focus on you, the patient. By getting to know you as an individual, they are able to help create a self-management plan that meets your needs—a plan based on your age and your school or work schedule as well as your daily activities, family demands, eating habits, and health problems.

Achieve real results. Team up with a Diabetes Educator today.
To find a Diabetes Educator near you, call 1-800-TEAMUP4, or go to www.diabeteseducator.org.

A Diabetes Educator can help you:
• Learn how to balance your eating, physical activity, medication, and blood sugar monitoring routines.
• Incorporate lifestyle needs, such as cultural eating habits and exercise preferences, into your management plan.
• Learn how to prevent, recognize, and treat high and low blood sugar.
• Prevent or delay diabetes complications such as heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage, and sexual problems.
• Decrease your healthcare costs by reducing the need for treatment of complications and hospital stays.
• Develop healthy coping strategies and problem-solving skills.
• Improve your confidence in your ability to manage your diabetes.