CCH seminar focuses on dangers of diabetes

COLUMBUS - Amputation.

That's the first thought that flashed through Platte Center native Mary Szatko's mind when her doctor said she was borderline diabetic 10 years ago.

"Oh, you're going to go blind, you're going to lose limbs," she said were her initial thoughts back then.

She also wondered how she could be borderline.

"You either are or you aren't," she said. "It was really all the time I had Type II. They just changed the definition."

Szatko is one of 17 million Americans who have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association, and nearly 6 million of those are unaware they have the disease.

On Tuesday, Columbus Community Hospital will host a seminar on diabetes with guest speaker Dr. Luke Lemke of Columbus Medical Center.

Mary Jo Burkhardt, RN, BSN, and diabetes educator at Columbus Community Hospital, said the best definition she has found for diabetes is it is a disease in which the body doesn't produce or properly use insulin, a hormone needed to convert food into energy.

That leads to increased blood sugar. Left untreated, prolonged higher blood sugar levels can lead to complications such as heart attacks, strokes, amputations, blindness and kidney problems.

There are several different types of diabetes. Two of the major types are Type I and Type II. In Type I diabetes, the body makes no insulin at all. It is typically diagnosed in children and young adults who must take insulin shots to stay alive.

With Type II diabetes, which makes up 90 to 95 percent of diagnoses according to the ADA, the body doesn't make enough insulin, but is still making some. However, the insulin it does make isn't used properly.

"It's usually controlled by diet, exercise and medication, and sometimes insulin," Burkhardt said.

Symptoms can include increased thirst or hunger, increased urination, extreme lack of energy and unexplained weight loss. Those symptoms don't always mean diabetes, but they are the classic signs of the disease, Burkhardt said.

Szatko, 54, said she doesn't recall having symptoms for diabetes when she was diagnosed, but she does have a history of family members with the disease, which is one of the major risk factors.

She was more concerned about her high blood pressure and high cholesterol when she visited the doctor for a checkup a decade ago.

"My blood sugars were high - not real high, but high enough that it was a warning sign," she said.

Out of her five siblings, Szatko is the only one who has Type II diabetes. But her mother, and some of her grandparents' brothers and sisters on both her father's and mother's sides of the family have the disease.

Two of her grandparents' siblings lost legs, and another "had diabetes bad," she said.

So far, both she and her mother, Dorothy Rosenthal, 75, manage the disease with oral medication and diet.

Determining if the disease is present requires a blood test.

The hospital offers both a free diabetes support group for adults that meets monthly, as well as formal, diabetes education classes recognized by the American Diabetes Association that are Medicare reimbursable.

Offered in an eight-hour course broken up into two-hour sessions twice per week over two months, the classes require a physician's referral in order to be reimbursed. They are offered year-round, and start every other week.

People don't have to be a new diagnosis to attend.

Szatko said she and her mother have learned a lot by attending the classes, especially about diet and exercise.

Burkhardt said people should discuss diabetes with their physician as part of their yearly physical, particularly if they have any of the several risk factors for Type II, which include family history, obesity, being age 40 or older, living a sedentary lifestyle, or being a member of a minority ethnic group.

Additionally, women who had gestational diabetes during pregnancy, a condition that affects 4 percent of the population, are at a higher risk for developing regular Type II diabetes as they age.

"If you get active and lose weight - those are probably the only two you can do. You can't change family history and genetic makeup, but you can change your activity. Even a small amount of weight loss makes a big difference," Burkhardt said.

Today, Szatko's blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol are under control and she feels well. But it wasn't easy.

"It's still will power," she said. "It's still what you want to do. You can give a person everything, but if they don't follow it ...

Reporter Scott Aust can be reached at 563-7534 or scott.aust@lee.net.