Endocrinologists and patients will scale Kilimanjaro to raise awareness about diabetes

The Spanish Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition participates in #XPeriencokilimanjaro, an initiative in which 21 people will participate, including specialists in endocrinology and nutrition, health and five people with diabetes to crown the top of Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa (5,895 meters).

The SEEN makes this challenge, in which they will use 12 days from June 29, together with Trainsplant, an international organization that helps people with transplantation and chronic diseases.The endocrine stressed that it is an experience that the participants of previous editions "have marked them."

The objective of the project is to support those who have been subjected to a complicated process as a recovery after an accident, a surgical intervention, a pre -and post -transplant treatment.It is also sought to sensitize society about the complications that these situations can lead to and how difficult it can be to perform daily activities that require physical effort.

For Dr. Juana Olivar Roldán, a member of the Endocrinology, Nutrition and Physical Exercise of the Spanish Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition (Genefseen), which joined last year to the Xperienciakilimanjaro, this experience allows a closeness and an exchange to be reachedof sensations "quite difficult to achieve within the framework of a consultation."

He added that “the current of empathy that is established between doctor and patient by sharing an activity as intense as it helps to assess more the importance of understanding how the patient feels in approaching the disease and the relevance also of transmitting the sensationthat they are heard. ”

According to the specialist Elena Saura, a member of Genefseen, who also integrated the expedition last year, affirms that "climbing kilimanjaro along with health and endocrinologists allow this trip to mark a before and after in the way of seeing the patient medical relationship afterFulfill this challenge. ”

Emotions and body changes

“When you are aware of what it means constantly controlling your sugar levels and with the result of your glycemia, you have to make decisions that will influence the development of your day, you begin to see diabetes with other eyes.Sometimes living with diabetes is to make a bobbin fit with all the variables that affect blood glucose, ”said Dr. Mercedes Noval, a member of Genefseen and the LIPID Group of the SEEN."Putting on people's shoes with diabetes implies experiencing a flood of emotions," he added.

Dr. Saura verified the bodily changes that occurred after the ascent differ between patients with diabetes and those who do not suffer from this pathology."Travelers who did not suffer diabetes, contrary to what we thought, did not lose weight or fat and even some participants gained weight. However, it did happen in patients with diabetes. In guides and porters the hardness of theirwork, especially in the latter, that lost significantly more weight and fat. ”

For his part, Arturo Carvajal, a patient with diabetes and participant in the last promotion to Kilimanjaro, stressed that ascending to the highest mountain in Africa along with the endocrine "has served as great help when making decisions, but not onlyfor their knowledge in the field of medicine, but especially because of the empathy they showed and because the decisions were adopted based on how each patient was. "

The experts got into the skin of those affected with diabetes when using a monitoring sensor and a glucometer to measure sugar rates before and after meals.“Thus, they can experience the difficult task of carrying a blood glucoseAlways controlled because they also suffer those ups and downs.For us also a comfort, to verify that people without diabetes also have peaks, ”said Carvajal.

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