Diabetes Education

It's possible that you or perhaps your family members either have diabetes or could be at risk for the disease. Did you know that there’s a lot you can do to prevent or delay the onset of diabetes? If you are dealing with diabetes now, it’s a good idea to find diabetes education services located close to home, near McConnellsburg, PA. FCMC offers you expert diabetes education in a caring atmosphere so you and your family can learn vital information that can improve your quality of life. Our goal is to provide diabetes education to the community so that they may participate in the management of their care and prevent or delay complications of the disease.


Nancy Lingenfelter, RN is the Diabetes Educator at the Fulton County Medical Center. If you have diabetes or have been recently diagnosed, feel free to call Nancy. She can work with you and your provider to help you with everything from lifestyle adjustments to medication management, including the utilization of diabetes technology.

Nancy can be reached at (717)485-6165 or NLingenfelter@fcmcpa.org


Click here to view the information on the upcoming seminar for Continuous Glucose Monitoring.

Understanding Diabetes

Diabetes is a serious, chronic medical condition that occurs when the body doesn’t produce enough insulin to maintain normal blood glucose (or blood sugar) levels. A hormone produced by the pancreas, insulin converts glucose into energy that your body can use to fuel its daily activities. If your body doesn’t produce enough insulin, sugar backs up in the bloodstream instead of being distributed to the cells.

Whenever people’s blood glucose levels remain too high over a long period, they put themselves at risk for several devastating complications, including kidney failure, heart attack, stroke, blindness, neuropathy, and cardiovascular disease. In rare cases, the disease can progress so far as to require amputation of limbs or extremities. Fortunately, with the right education and the proper tools, it’s possible to manage the condition and prevent complications.

Types of Diabetes

The term "diabetes” does not refer to a single disease, but rather a collection of diseases that affect the body’s ability to produce or manage insulin. The three most common forms of diabetes are:

·Type 1 Diabetes: The most devastating form of the disease, Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder. Also called juvenile diabetes, it typically takes hold in childhood or adolescence, causing the immune system to attack insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. People who suffer from Type 1 diabetes must take insulin injections every day to stay alive.

·Type 2 Diabetes: The most common form of diabetes, Type 2 develops later in life, resulting from a combination of genetic factors and lifestyle choices (e.g., a diet high in refined sugars). Type 2 diabetes impairs the body’s ability to make insulin, although it usually doesn’t destroy it completely.

·Gestational Diabetes: Pregnant women can also develop a form of the disease known as gestational diabetes, which typically disappears after the delivery of the child.

How to Spot the Symptoms of Diabetes

Many diabetics experience no symptoms until they show up at a medical clinic with an emergency, but most will notice the effects of the disease before long. Some of the most common symptoms of diabetes include:

Extreme thirst
Frequent urination
Weight loss
Increased appetite
Extreme fatigue
Blurry vision
Numbness or tingling in the extremities
Frequent infections

Keeping Diabetes at Bay

The best way to deal with Type 2 diabetes is to prevent it in the first place. To do so, people with prediabetes or relatively high blood sugar levels must incorporate healthy foods into their diet, manage their weight, and increase the amount of exercise they do regularly. Even when such corrective measures come too late to prevent the disease, they can help to delay the onset of diabetes.

There is no cure for diabetes, but it is possible to manage the disease with the help of a diabetes doctor, a diabetes nurse educator, a registered dietician, and the resources provided by a medical health center. People with diabetes should follow the same advice as people with prediabetes, which means improving their diet and exercise routine. With a diagnosis of Diabetes, it is extremely important to maintain healthy blood sugar levels. People with Type 1 Diabetes and some people with Type 2 must take insulin injections to compensate for the fact that their body doesn’t produce enough of the hormone on their own.

Continue Your Diabetes Education

The first step toward preventing or managing diabetes is understanding it. That’s why the team at the Fulton Medical Center in McConnellsburg, PA places so much emphasis on diabetes education. In addition to offering emergency care services in PA, we teach people how to tackle the disease head-on. By doing so, we help improve patient outcomes and ensure a higher quality of life.

For more information call the Fulton County Medical Center at (717) 485-6165.