Even if you don’t have diabetes but are the caretaker of a diabetes patient or have a loved one with diabetes, you may consider joining a diabetes support group. They can be in person or online diabetes support groups, depending on how the group is organized. Contracting either type of diabetes can be a scary and traumatic experience, and it will help you adapt to your condition by seeing others who manage their diabetes and still manage to have lives.

Since any kind of support group is made up of individual human beings, there will be all kinds of personalities in the group. Just going to one meeting does not mean you have to be a member for life. Diabetes support groups are usually voluntary. Perhaps one meeting will be all you need.

How To Find Them

Check out the classified section of your local paper. For instance, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, support groups are listed once or twice a week. If you can’t find a diabetes support group in your paper, check with your doctor, who might know of a group. You could also check out your local public library and research online for a diabetes support group to check out.

If you are already online, then you have access to more diabetes support groups than you can shake a glucometer at. You can check out these websites for information:

The American Diabetes Association (ADA)
www.HealthCentral.com
www.defeatdiabetes.org
And, for those who are guardians of pets with diabetes, check out www.petdiabetes.org
www.alt-support-diabetes.org for an online support group

About Peer To Peer Networks

Many of the online diabetes support networks or newsgroups use what is called peer to peer (p2p) technology. This means you can talk in real time – well, as fast as you can type, anyway. The information and news gets to you very fast. But there are online safety issues with p2p networks. You can still use them safely, if you just follow some common sense advice:

No file sharing on a p2p network. EVER. If someone sends you a file, even if it sounds really good, do not download it. It is most likely infected with malware (short for malicious software).
Never give out your personal information on line, in an email or a pop up window.
Regularly update your computer’s firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. They all check different security issues with your computer.

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