At Family Acupuncture and Wellness, our staff doesn’t simply treat your symptoms. Instead, we consider your overall health, the root causes of your issues, and any lifestyle factors that may be contributing to your good health or your problems. When it comes to insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, or type 2 diabetes, our approach is no different.
Type 1 and type 2 diabetes are different. If you have type 1, your body doesn’t produce insulin, and there’s nothing you can do to change it. You were likely diagnosed at a fairly young age.
If you have type 2, there was most likely a slow buildup to it. You probably first had insulin resistance but didn’t know it. That meant your cells were not as efficient at handling glucose in your blood as needed. The main hallmark of insulin resistance is a waist measurement that’s more than half your height.
After insulin resistance, you probably had pre-diabetes, which is where your blood glucose is higher than a healthy level, but not sufficiently high enough for physicians to call it type 2 diabetes.
Conventional medical practitioners may not do much to treat insulin resistance or prediabetes, other than to tell you to consume a nutritious diet and focus on exercising regularly. Once you have diabetes, conventional medicine uses a pharmaceutical approach to control blood sugar levels. Controlling your blood sugar is critically important, because too much glucose can lead to a host of negative consequences.
Functional medicine uses a different approach. We usually start with a thorough lab workup, that is focused on finding all the factors that might be affecting your blood sugar. We call these root causes. Rather than simply telling you to follow a healthy diet, our clinicians help you develop a nutrition plan that works for you and your physiology. We prescribe targeting supplements, herbs, and nutrients that help correct the body’s ability to handle blood sugar, and we help you identify exercise that you can do and enjoy, so you can create a routine you’re more likely to stick with.
Additionally, we may suggest treatments such as acupuncture, which can help you lose weight. Weight loss is often an important factor in treating diabetes, prediabetes, and insulin resistance. The Diabetes Prevention Program says that if you’re at a high risk of developing diabetes, losing 5-7% of your body weight lowers your risk significantly.
Even if you have type 2 diabetes, its often possible to reverse the disease. This requires a targeted workup, careful attention to diet and exercise, along with other interventions, such as the use of supplements, therapies like acupuncture or massage, and possibly other approaches.
If you’d like to learn more about how we approach the treatment of diabetes, book an appointment at Family Acupuncture and Wellness. We’re happy to answer your questions and suggest a treatment plan for your specific circumstances.
