“In order for us to deal effectively with diabetes, there is need for even more collaborations. Diabetes needs a full-time education programme; you can’t deal with diabetes unless you are educated.”By Sharmain GraingerGlynis Alonzo-Beaton is a ‘Special Person’According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, diabetes is a disease which causes the body to produce too little insulin or insulin that cannot be used normally, resulting in high levels of sugar in the blood.It can therefore be concluded that the impact of this disease can be far-reaching when one’s health is taken into consideration. In fact, the World Health Organisation has surmised that since diabetes is characterised by elevated blood sugar, it is a chronic, metabolic disease which leads over time to serious damage to the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves. Essentially, diabetes-related complications can result in death.Based on data out of the Ministry of Public Health, as at last year there were more than 50,000 people living in Guyana with diabetes, and that number is likely to be on the increase.Among those currently living with diabetes is Glynis Alonzo-Beaton. Standing at six-foot, three inches, she not only looks like a fighter, but she lives the part every day in her quest to combat a disease that unsuspectingly invaded her body several years ago.But she has not only been fighting for herself, rather, Alonzo-Beaton has been helping to teach others inflicted with the disease to fight for themselves too.DEVASTATEDShe was first diagnosed with type-one diabetes in 1992. She was just 22 years old at the time. In fact it was shortly after she gave birth to the first of her three children,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, Do?a, that she developed the disease.Type-one diabetes usually occurs when enough insulin is not produced, thus resulting in high blood sugar levels. Other types of diabetes include: type-two – where the body does not use insulin properly, and then there is gestational diabetes which can develop in a woman when she is pregnant. The latter type is known to disappear after pregnancy.But since type-one diabetes is an immune disorder, Alonzo-Beaton, during a recent interview disclosed that she was insulin-dependent.Always armed with her Dex 4 (fast acting glucose tablets)However, she, like the many people inflicted with the disease, was devastated when she first learnt that she had diabetes. At that point she hadn’t the will-power to wage war.“I was very upset to learn that I was a diabetic, because I knew of my father’s condition as a diabetic and immediately I knew what it could lead to. He was a late onset diabetic and from the time he was diagnosed he was on insulin, and so I just hated being diagnosed with diabetes,” Alonzo-Beaton reflected.While it is believed that a low-carb diet can help to cure type-two diabetes, to date there have been no reports of a cure for type-one. Moreover, Alonzo-Beaton was gradually forced to accept her condition.And since she wanted to live and not die due to diabetes complications, she decided to at least try to ward off possible complications. This saw her attempting to rid her diet of all sugars. In fact she was able to maintain this radical change for two years following her diagnosis. But there wasn’t much available information for her to draw from.‘HONEYMOON’It seemed that her effort was enough to reverse her condition. This was in light of the fact that after giving birth to her second child, Keziah, diabetes miraculous disappeared from Alonzo-Beaton’s body.She would,Authentic NFL Jerseys China, however, later learn that her diabetes had entered what is called a ‘honeymoon phase’. Her body was again able to produce significant amounts of insulin on its own. But this she would eventually come to know was not an unusual occurrence in the body of a recently diagnosed diabetic“For three years after my second child was born, my blood sugar was 70 whenever I checked,” Alonzo-Beaton recalled. But she would awake one day to find that her blood sugar was a soaring 375. Her diabetes was back with a vengeance.She still wasn’t prepared to struggle with a life-long ailment.“I did not take very good care of myself during those years…I was thinking of diabetes as a disease for old people, not for me,” Alonzo-Beaton said. She nevertheless sought some help from the Guyana Diabetic Association, but wasn’t too keen on getting caught up with such an institution. She was supposed to be living life to the fullest.In fact she had a rounded managerial career and was very much involved in the work of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) which she joined in 2003.As a member of the YWCA she developed a passion for women’s issues and was even a big crusader against gun-related violence. She was able to travel to many countries including Palestine where she was able to fulfil her dream of seeing Yas