Chronic Disease Management

What is chronic disease management?

Chronic diseases require regular attention throughout life, and the only way to stay healthy is with chronic disease management. That means keeping the disease under control so that it doesn’t progress to cause further damage and complications.

What are the most common chronic diseases?

Your provider at Gulf Coast Medical Clinic can help manage a wide range of chronic diseases, from arthritis to allergies and asthma. However, they frequently work with people who have diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.

Diabetes

Though Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes arise from different causes, they both result in high blood sugar due to problems with insulin. High blood sugar damages blood vessels and nerves, resulting in complications such as slow-healing foot ulcers, vision loss, kidney disease, and heart disease.

High cholesterol

When you consume cholesterol, your digestive tract turns it into little packages called lipoproteins. The type of lipoprotein determines if the cholesterol is good or bad.

Good lipoproteins remove excess cholesterol from your bloodstream, while bad lipoproteins continue to circulate. The more bad cholesterol you have, the higher the chance that the circulating cholesterol will stick to an artery wall and accumulate, a condition called atherosclerosis.

As atherosclerotic plaque continues to enlarge, it blocks blood flow in the arteries. Depending on where the plaque is located, atherosclerosis can cause heart attacks, strokes, leg pain, and leg ulcers.

High blood pressure

High blood pressure places excessive force on the arterial walls. As a result, it damages the arteries, leading to atherosclerosis, chronic kidney disease, aneurysms, heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, and vision loss.

What should I expect from chronic disease management?

Your provider reviews your medical history, talks with you about your lifestyle habits, and runs blood work. Then, they create a plan to improve the unhealthy areas of your lifestyle that contribute to and accelerate your chronic disease.

Most patients need to change their diets, commit to a regular exercise regimen, lose weight, and make other changes, such as stopping smoking and reducing their stress.

To control your disease and prevent complications from developing, you need to keep your blood pressure and your blood levels of sugar and cholesterol within a normal range. If your chronic disease is in an early stage, you may be able to manage it with lifestyle changes. 

Your Gulf Coast Medical Clinic provider may also prescribe medications to help manage your chronic disease. You may need to take medications when your condition is advanced or lifestyle changes don’t do the job. 

Whether you want to prevent chronic disease or you need expert chronic disease management, call Gulf Coast Medical Clinic or schedule an appointment online today.