Newly diagnosed
Your first month with diabetes
A new diagnosis brings questions, practical tasks and sometimes difficult feelings. Start with a clear treatment plan and the support you need. You do not have to learn everything in one appointment.
This guide helps adults organise the first 30 days. It is not a treatment timetable: start prescribed care now, keep appointments when advised, and do not wait for a particular week to ask for help. Children need their specialist team’s plan.
Make sure the advice fits your diabetes type
Ask which type you have and whether any further tests are needed. Treatment, monitoring and education are not identical for everyone.
Type 1 diabetes
Insulin is essential from diagnosis. Your specialist team should teach insulin use, glucose monitoring, carbohydrate counting and what to do during illness. A diet or exercise programme is not a substitute for insulin.
Read the Type 1 guideType 2 diabetes
Your plan may combine food and activity changes with medicines. The choice depends on your health and needs. Ask about structured diabetes education and support rather than trying to manage everything alone.
Read the Type 2 guidePregnancy or planning a pregnancy
Tell your diabetes and maternity teams promptly. Pregnancy needs specific monitoring, targets and medicine advice. If you have gestational diabetes, follow your pregnancy team’s plan rather than a general adult timetable.
NHS pregnancy-specific careFurther guidance: NHS Type 1 treatment and NHS Type 2 treatment.
Your first 30 days
A practical four-week plan
Use the weeks to pace your learning, not to postpone care. Move a task earlier whenever your team recommends it. Keep returning to the essentials: your medicines, your agreed monitoring plan and knowing whom to contact.
Leave with a clear plan
Before focusing on online targets or buying equipment, make sure you understand what your team has prescribed. Ask for instructions you can refer to at home, and explain any difficulty with cost, supplies, language or using a device.
- Write down your diabetes type, the medicines prescribed, how to take them and the next appointment.
- Save routine and out-of-hours contact details. Ask what to do if symptoms or readings worry you.
- If monitoring is prescribed, practise using the meter or sensor with your team and check you have the supplies you need.
- Ask for a written plan for illness and for low glucose if your medicines can cause it. Ask whether you need ketone testing and how to act on the result.
Not everyone with Type 2 diabetes needs to check glucose at home. Monitoring should answer a useful question in your care plan, not become a test you feel obliged to perform after every meal. Diabetes UK explains who needs home checks.
Make food changes you can sustain
Choose one or two realistic changes instead of trying to replace every familiar meal. A balanced pattern can include vegetables, fruit, wholegrains and pulses, with portions and meal timing discussed in the context of your treatment.
- Review your usual drinks. Water or an unsweetened drink can replace a routine sugary drink; fast-acting sugar still has a role when treating a hypo.
- Choose a familiar meal and discuss practical changes with your diabetes nurse or dietitian.
- If you use mealtime insulin, ask for carbohydrate-counting education and use the matching plan your team has taught you.
- Avoid a very strict low-calorie diet or sudden major carbohydrate reduction without advice, particularly if you use insulin or another medicine that can cause hypos.
You do not need a perfect menu. Start with a change you can afford and enjoy, then review it with your team. Our diabetes food guide offers further reading; the NHS treatment guide explains why restrictive diets need care.
Build activity into daily life
Find a manageable activity that fits your mobility, health and routine. That might be walking, gardening or another activity you enjoy. Ask about a safe starting point if you are unsure, and build gradually rather than treating exercise as a punishment for a reading or a meal.
- If you take insulin or another medicine that can cause low glucose, ask how activity affects your monitoring, food and treatment plan.
- Carry your prescribed hypo treatment when relevant, and make sure someone close to you knows how to help.
- Ask how to adapt activity during illness or when glucose is outside the range your team considers safe.
- Discuss pregnancy, foot problems or other health conditions before following a generic exercise plan.
Do not use exercise to try to correct suspected DKA. Follow your urgent-help and sick-day instructions instead. NHS guidance on daily life with Type 1 diabetes explains activity-related planning.
Review patterns and get support
Bring the information your team has asked you to collect, such as prescribed glucose readings, hypos, symptoms and medicine side effects. Brief notes about meals or activity may help explain patterns. Do not wait until this week to report worrying symptoms or repeated lows.
- Check the date and purpose of your next review and how to share readings securely with your team.
- Ask which eye, foot, kidney, blood-pressure and cholesterol checks apply to you and when they are due.
- Ask about a diabetes education course, dietitian input and support at work or home.
- Tell someone if fear, low mood or feeling overwhelmed is making daily care difficult. Emotional support is part of diabetes care, not a sign of failure.
With your permission, a trusted person can join an appointment and help take notes. Diabetes UK has support for coping with a diagnosis.
Understand your numbers without borrowing someone else’s targets
- HbA1c
- A blood test reflecting average glucose over roughly the previous two to three months. Ask what your result means, your personal target and when it should be repeated. It is not a score of how well you have managed a single day.
- Meter and sensor readings
- Ask which ranges to use, when to check and what action to take outside them. Your targets may differ with diabetes type, pregnancy, treatment and risk of low glucose.
- Low glucose
- A hypo is usually glucose below 4 mmol/L and needs prompt treatment. If you are awake and can swallow safely, follow your hypo plan, take fast-acting sugar and recheck in 10-15 minutes. If still low, repeat the treatment. Once symptoms improve and glucose is above 4 mmol/L, have your next meal or a longer-acting carbohydrate snack, following your plan. Use the NHS step-by-step guidance; severe symptoms need emergency help.
Our HbA1c conversion calculator and glucose unit converter can help explain units and estimates. They do not measure your blood glucose, diagnose diabetes or decide a medicine dose.
Follow the treatment and sick-day plan agreed with your team. Do not stop insulin, even if you are not eating. Other medicines may need different instructions during illness, so ask for advice rather than applying an insulin rule to every medicine.
Five questions to take to your next appointment
- What should I do today, and which tasks can wait?
- What are my targets and my action plan for readings outside them?
- Which side effects or symptoms mean I should call, and which need emergency help?
- What support would make my food, activity or medicine plan more practical?
- Who should I contact between appointments, including at night or at weekends?
This page is general education, not personalised medical advice. Your own team should adapt the plan to your diabetes type, treatment and circumstances.