And is there anything that looking back you feel worked particularly well for you?
My GP letting me take control of it or not control of it… I mean he was… I mean I said to him in January, “I want one last try to get these under control.” And he said, “Okay, but you've said that before.” And I said, “No, I really mean it this time. I will, and then if I don't get it under control, I will start insulin. And you can put that on my card, that I will do that.” And he let me do that, you know, without, and he hasn't sort of, he hasn't pressured me into stuff that I didn't want to do. It's been negotiated. The increase of medication has been negotiated.
The, I mean I said to him about the atenolol, coming off the atenolol when my blood pressure went down. And he said, “Oh, I don't know. Oh, all right then, we'll give it a try.” So he responds to my requests. And if my bloods continue to stay the same, I shall ask if I can take lower doses of the metformin. And I'm sure he'll let me if he thinks that's okay, as long as I monitor it.
So there's a lot of, I think for me I'm glad there's a lot of self-monitoring. And you have to take responsibility for it yourself because it is a lifelong condition - it's a 24-hour condition. You can't just take your medicines in the morning and expect to go through the whole day then just doing what you like. |
