My experience with diabetes, as an Ayurvedic doctor

My name’s Rubeena, and I’m an intern Ayurvedic doctor.

In India, many doctors practise Ayurveda (a traditional way of healing that uses herbs and natural remedies). And being an Ayurvedic doctor, I meet lots of patients and listen to their problems – Meeting and helping cure their diseases is my passion, and brings me peace.

But in the modern era, people want instant solutions to their problems. Even when it relates to medicines and treatments. Patients are often:

• in a hurry and want to rush their treatment
• unwilling to consider long-term treatments
• looking for an instant cure for their disease

This situation is made worse by modern lifestyles. People face many problems in their day-to-day lives and often ignore their health problems. This can lead to critical conditions like high blood pressure (a common issue in India) – Doctors refer to high blood pressure as the silent killer because it’s asymptomatic, damaging people’s body systems and often killing them without obvious signs or symptoms.

Diabetes is another dangerous disease which can often go undiagnosed for quite some time. As a doctor, I often see patients suffering from diabetes, but who are unaware they have it and how much damage it’s doing to the systems internally.

Diabetes attacks the main organs of the body, such as the eyes, kidneys, nervous system, etc., with high sugar levels causing slow, gradual damage over time. The early symptoms are things like thirst, dry mouth, fatigue, lethargy, weight gain, and blurred vision, but patients often ignore these and continue to live their lives as if they’re okay.

When patients come to us with another problem, but we as medical professionals suspect they have diabetes, we’ll recommend they take tests to confirm the diagnosis. Often, patients will deny it, refusing the test and refusing to believe they could have this disease.

And even when the test is taken and the diagnosis has been confirmed, some patients refuse to take the medicine for it. Sometimes it’s because they believe that if they take medicine once, they’ll become dependent on it. Other times it’s due to the expense or because they don’t want to adjust their lifestyle and schedule around taking medicine. And some patients will take their medicine only at critical times, when their blood sugar levels have peaked, but refuse to take it when their levels are normal.

As doctors, we try to guide them around how to take their medicine, counsel them on their health situation, advise on cost-free medications they can take, and provide recommendations on lifestyle adjustments they can make to reduce the damage they’re doing to their bodies.

Both ayurvedic and allopathic doctors recommend weight loss and lifestyle adjustments as the first line of treatment for diabetes patients. We advise patients to follow a healthy daily routine, eating sugar-free meals, limiting their carbohydrates, and taking necessary medications on time – We also recommend they consult with diet planners, who can provide further assistance with meal planning and identifying foods that will support their health.

As an Ayurvedic doctor, we categorise patients into 2 groups, depending on weight. The first treatment we typically recommend is a herbal medicine called shamana chikitsa, which focuses on treating the symptoms. If patients aren’t cured by this, we move on to panchakarma, which is the last stage of treatment of every disease and involves treatments as well as medicines – As long as patients follow every procedure, they can be cured.