My Endo is so annoying and I am dreading my appointment with him tomorrow.
I feel like he judges me and is never really supportive. Has anyone got any tips on how to explain my highs and lows when he evaluates my Glucose meter readings? I just want to get out of there as fast as I can!!!
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If that’s all you want to do, then lots of smiling and nodding is your ticket. The docs are usually in a hurry anyway.
However, if you want to develop a better relationship, then it’s more complicated.
One thing I might try is to bring a list of all the things that can affect blood sugar. Things like the variability of insulin and food absorption. Our fat tissue and our gut do not absorb insulin and food the same way each time. Each meal is complex enough for the gut to process and absorb differently. Simply changing the order that you consume the things on your plate will change your after meal BG profile. Include things like losing sleep. Make your list long and concrete! He’ll get the idea.
Exercise duration, intensity and the time of day all effect how your BG responds. Stress from family/social interactions can skew blood sugar. Levels of other hormones (cortisol, glucagon, amylin come to mind), not easily controlled by anyone, much less a diabetic, all effect the interaction of food, insulin, and exercise. I don’t know if you’re a woman, but female hormones triple the complexity!
Is your doctor diabetic? Does he have any idea how hard it is to control blood sugar in manual mode? The healthy non-diabetic’s endocrine system is an elegant and finely tuned metabolism that makes delivering insulin sub-q like comparing a toy airplane propelled by a twisted rubber band to a super-sonic air transport.
Tell him you do the best you can with very crude tools. Heck, our blood glucose meters accuracy are rated at +/- 20%, for gosh-sakes! Tell him you don’t like being judged by him and would rather have him on your side when you’re up against diabetes rather than you feeling like you have to struggle with the whole world, the doctor and diabetes pushing against you. You could ask him, “Why don’t you get on my side to fight diabetes instead of joining the evil diabetes side.”
Smiling and nodding is easier and completely understandable. And not without honor! Expressing your true feelings is harder but potentially more rewarding. I understand both choices!
Thanks Terry, fortunately for me I am not a woman and dont have to deal with hormones affecting my blood glucose levels!!
I think I will take your advice and “bamboozle” him with your list of reasons why I have highs and lows…and NO he is not a diabetic, seriously thinking that if he rubs me the wrong way tomorrow I am gonna give him the flick!!!
Not sure of the actual meaning of “flick” but I think I’ve done it to several endos. I don’t suffer fools gladly! Especially ones that think they know more about diabetes than I do. Good luck!
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I finally found an endo that I like and is very supportive. She looks past the wonky numbers and sees my diabetes as a whole and I genuinely feel that she is proud of me. That being said, I grew up with a horrible one. I remember him teaching me that if I checked by blood and it was below 100 to eat a snack (such as 4 peanut butter crackers and 4oz of juice or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and milk), then he would blatantly call me non-compliant when I was unable to keep my BGs between 80 and 120. The very act of me being compliant makes those numbers impossible. He was also very old school, didn’t believe in insulin pumps, wanted me to (as a child) keep my A1C around 10!! It was bad.
Haha, another endo of mine was pretty bad, too. He wasn’t “mean”, but he completely ignored the fact that I had been diabetic for over 23 years when I went to my first appt with him. He explained for a good 5 minutes what an A1C test is and then proceeded to explain to me the differences between Lantus and Novolog (didn’t even talk about any other insulins). I smiled politely and never went back.
Don’t be afraid to change doctors, you shouldn’t stress about something like visiting the endo. There are always others out there!
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If you don’t think it’s worth it trying to explain things because he won’t listen or understand anyway write a list of what you need, rx etc. and say you have another appointment and you’re in a hurry. I’m sure he won’t mind 
get in, get what you need and get out fast before he has a chance to do any damage.
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I agree that if you’re not getting helpful advice in a supportive manner, flicking them may be the best option. My copay is $40 or $50 but my insurer is paying $300-400 sometimes, depending on how involved the visit is. You should get good service for the $$.
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hey @Shoehorn - let us know how it goes. I love my endo, and he respects my opinion on things, because I come into appointments with fully fleshed out reports and logs, so he knows I’m serious about wanting to take care of myself. He tells me he has many patients who come in with “a few numbers written on a paper napkin”.
but I did have to “flick” my last endo. disrespect & weird inquiries into my personal life.
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When I am having issues that I want to deal with, I find it helpful to make a list and take it with me.
If at all possible, I might start my list with a brief statement like:
“I need you to be on my team. If you judge me as being a “bad” diabetic, that isn’t being on my team. I am willing to work with you on big picture strategies on how to get better results. Are you willing to do that?”
I almost never find discussions about a particular high/low as beneficial unless you want to use them as an example of how you are struggling to manage something like exercise, or some type of food, or demands of work that result in a low/high, etc.
Wishing you the best, and if the endo doesn’t want to be on your team, where you make the decisions and the endo is an expert advisor, then … Flick!
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i had a similar situation w/ my endo. i have to admit first off that i have been seeing him for almost 30 years now, but we’ve been through a lot together.
he was always criticizing me about my BGs. i truly did everything he told me to do. i ate what i should eat. i ate when i was supposed to eat; i was consistent and definitely compliant. but he was rude never the less. then, during one of my visits, he said to me that he couldn’t understand why i didn’t see him more regularly, as in every 3 months (at the very least for my A1c level). i told him that coming to see him made me feel like a failure and a naughty child, and i didn’t want to feel persecuted, proselytized to, or made to feel worse of a D. he stared at me for a moment and then told me, “you know, this is just my way. other patients have told me the exact same thing.” it shocked me (and it didn’t). so i made a deal w/ him: i told him i would come regularly, but he had to promise to be encouraging and sympathetic and helpful; i refused to take anymore criticism. if he couldn’t do that much for me, i was switching endos. it has worked like a charm ever since.
Thanks for all the feed back.
My endo appointment was a success…A1c reading of 5.9%!
And I only gained 1kg from my last appointment, he did mentioned that my weight gain has now slowed probably due to my recent change from Lantus to Levemir. However I still want to lose another 5kgs…trying a low carb diet as suggested by Terry4, hopefully this works.
Anyway he wasn’t critical at all and said that I wouldn’t have to see him for another 6months!!! YAY!!
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Congrats on an easy, good-news endo appointment. It’s nice to get some good news once in a while. You earned it!
Good luck with your weight loss effort. Keep your eyes on the long-game, however.
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Glad to hear about a wonderful A1C result.