Hana went for her eye exam on Monday. . The nurse, a RN, asked what medications she uses to treat her diabetes. I really had to bite my tongue. Hana just looked at me and rolled her eyes. I replied there are no medications to treat type 1. She got very angry and said "well does she take insulin" and I replied of course she does. But the phrasing was just so misinformed coming from a RN. I had to just let it go.
To enter it into their chart, maybe? Since his eye appointments are billed to our medical and not optical I assume that their asking what the last A1c was or most recent BG was required information for the medical part of the exam. I know they aren't asking just to get up all in our personal information. They also do pulse and blood pressure ... why doesn't that get people annoyed? Oh, wait ... the "technician" also does a glaucoma test. It's all part of the whole health picture. Our doctor said the same thing ... that testing sight when BGs are at high values is subject to error and he's a doctor and all that.
I do remember that our endo said to (ideally) schedule his first eye exam when his A1c was low so we have a good baseline. Our dental hygienist is type 1, so she understands but still has to ask; she mainly wants to know that he isn't so low that he would need to stop treatment to deal with a low. Our eye doc treats a lot of t1 patients, so somewhat familiar. She asks, but is not always super clear about how much they fluctuate, so I usually just say 'good.' I think if super high recently, it might tip them off to possible eye changes (and maybe gum changes for dentist). If low, I think they just want it dealt with before they get started. We just address it generally and move on. Mostly, nobody understands T1, so why get all upset.
