Diabetes and Surgery

When you or your child has diabetes, having surgery or a medical procedure can requires some more planning than usual. Things that can affect blood glucose levels include:

- fasting

- new or changed medications, including anaesthetics

- changes in activity levels

- eating patterns

- stress, anxiety or pain.

Managing diabetes before, during and after a procedure takes a bit more work to can help prevent complications such as low or high blood glucose levels and making ketones.

Planning and keeping target blood glucose post surgery helps reduce the chance of post operative infections. Before your procedure speak to your Diabetes Nurse Educator or Endocrinologist.

If the your procedure is at RCH and you are a patient at the RCH diabetes services, we can assist in developing a contact the diabetes office for a pre-operative fasting plan for before the procedure to prevent hypoglycaemia.

See below link for the RCH clinical Practice Guideline for surgery: 

Clinical Practice Guidelines: Diabetes Mellitus and Surgery