Your grandmothers cousin and her fancy man ?
No infact they are both forms of Diabetes education, DAFNE is for Type 1's and
DESMOND is for Type 2's.
The idea of both types of course are to give YOU the skills you need to understand
and manage your Diabetes.
You also take your car to the garage to be serviced, does that mean it will always
work perfectly ? Same goes for your Diabetes, you need to be your own mechanic. Your Diabetes
team are there to help and advise you, but the only person who sees you everyday is you
Sorry you need to attend a course to get the full details. Any attempt to condense intensive
training into a page on a website, is just NOT going to work. It will lose all the detail and
there won't be someone to answer all the millions of questions that arise. The ONLY sensible way
to get the benefit of DAFNE/DESMOND is to attend a course.
Ask you Diabetes care team to recommend that you attend one. At the moment places are limited for
these courses. In some areas one or the other is not available. However if the demand is there and the
benefits are apparent, then pressure can be put on PCT's to allocate funds for the courses.
Yes the courses are expensive to run and the staff expensive to train. However the alternative is
potentailly more expensive. The extended treatment of Diabetics with complications caused by poorly controlled
Diabetes. Even a few days in hospital could cost MORE than the cost of attending the course. Which one is
more effective use of PCT funds ?
Below are the stories of the people who have attended the courses and reaped the benefits. It is
hoped this section will grow and grow, as we receive more people's stories. These will hopefully form
all the convincing YOU need to sign up and attend one of the courses