We want to help empower you to manage your diabetes. You’ll learn how to:
- Check your blood sugar
- Plan your diet
- Get exercise
- Manage stress
Ask your Avera provider for personalized approaches in your lifestyle as well as information about local support groups for people with diabetes.
If you live with diabetes and want to become pregnant or if you develop gestational diabetes while you’re expecting, talk to your Avera provider for support and for more information to monitor your progress during pregnancy.
Regular exercise can improve your blood sugar. No matter where you live across our five-state region, you can work with an Avera diabetes educator or exercise specialist to create a personalized program based on your interests and fitness level. Activities may include walking, biking, flexibility exercises, strength training and more.
As part of your program, you’ll check your blood sugar level before and after exercising to stay safe and help improve your workout routine.
Should you need hospitalization to care for diabetes, you’ll benefit from comprehensive, specialized care delivered by our skilled, compassionate medical and nursing staff.
To help address non-healing diabetic skin conditions or sores, you may receive a prescription for hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). The wound care clinic on the Avera McKennan campus offers a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.
During this process, you’ll be pressurized with oxygen inside a comfortable and spacious hyperbaric oxygen chamber. While in the chamber, you breathe 100% oxygen at pressures two to three times atmospheric pressure, which stimulates the body's natural healing response.
